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The MOSFET was the first truly compact transistor that could be miniaturised and mass-produced for a wide range of uses. The MOSFET (MOS transistor) was invented by Mohamed Atalla and Dawon Kahng at Bell Labs in 1959. However, early junction transistors were relatively bulky devices that were difficult to manufacture on a mass-production basis, which limited them to a number of specialised applications. From that time on transistors were almost exclusively used for computer logic and peripherals. ordered all future IBM products to use transistors in their design. The 608 contained more than 3,000 germanium transistors. In April 1955, the IBM 608 was the first IBM product to use transistor circuits without any vacuum tubes and is believed to be the first all-transistorized calculator to be manufactured for the commercial market. The first working point-contact transistor was invented by John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain at Bell Labs in 1947.
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Vacuum tubes are still used in some specialist applications such as high power RF amplifiers, cathode ray tubes, specialist audio equipment, guitar amplifiers and some microwave devices. Since that time, solid-state devices have all but completely taken over. They played a leading role in the field of microwave and high power transmission as well as television receivers until the middle of the 1980s. They allowed for vastly more complicated systems and gave us radio, television, phonographs, radar, long-distance telephony and much more. They were almost solely responsible for the electronics revolution of the first half of the twentieth century. Vacuum tubes (Thermionic valves) were among the earliest electronic components. See also: History of electronic engineering and Timeline of electrical and electronic engineering Today, electronic devices are universally used in Computers, telecommunications and signal processing employing Integrated circuits with sometimes millions of transistors on a single chip. This played a key role in the emergence of microelectronics and the Digital Revolution. The MOSFET ( MOS transistor) was subsequently invented in 1959, and was the first compact transistor that could be miniaturised and mass-produced. The vacuum tube was no longer the only means of controlling electron flow. The next big technological step took several decades to appear, when Solid-state electronics emerged with the first working semiconductor transistor which was invented by William Shockley, Walter Houser Brattain and John Bardeen in 1947. The growth of electronics was rapid, and by the early 1920s commercial radio broadcasting and communications were becoming widespread, and electronic amplifiers were being used in such diverse applications as long distance telephony and the music recording industry. Practical applications started with the invention of the diode by Ambrose Fleming and the triode by Lee De Forest in the early 1900s, which made the detection of small electrical voltages such as radio signals from an radio antenna possible with a non-mechanical device. The identification of the electron in 1897, along with the subsequent invention of the vacuum tube which could amplify and rectify small electrical signals, inaugurated the field of electronics and the electron age. Electronics uses active devices to control electron flow by amplification and rectification, which distinguishes it from classical electrical engineering, which only uses passive effects such as resistance, capacitance and inductance to control electric current flow.Įlectronics has hugely influenced the development of modern society. The field of electronics is a branch of physics and electrical engineering that deals with the emission, behaviour and effects of electrons using electronic devices. Modern surface-mount electronic components on a printed circuit board, with a large integrated circuit at the top.
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