Thank you transistor
Today’s web 2.0 applications are wonderful and generally simple to use. All this simplicity is based on many layers of complexity and technical know-how that goes unnoticeable. There is the software we use, the server that provides all the necessary data, our operating system, our PC hardware, etc., etc. And on the most basic level is the humble transistor that celebrated yesterday its 60th birthday!
The transistor’s life started with the simple goal of current amplification. In a simplistic description there is two currents that flow through a transistor, the high current that we need and the low current that we use to control the higher current. Suddenly, humanity was liberated from the size and inefficiency of vacuum tubes. On the way it became apparent that transistors are excellent switches, resulting in the ones and zeros that form the basis of the digital world. Design improvements for this purpose have limited current leakages leading to power efficiency and the shrinking of huge numbers of transistors in tiny dimensions. Transistors are still used in analogue applications, like for example in our hi-fi power amps. Even there however, modern digital designs -again transistor based- start to bear fruit with efficiencies of the order of 90%!
The influence of the transistor on humanity is immeasurable. All modern economy is based on data systems working with transistors. Telecommunications, banking, transport, entertainment… none of these would be as we know it without that important building block. And not only that, modern technology not only has transformed and made our life comfortable, it carries promises unthinkable some decades ago:
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Thanks to the internet, data and communication flow no more follow paths determined and controlled by countries and politicians. If there is ever a chance to have a unified humanity with no wars and real cooperation it will be via the use of technology that makes all this possible.
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The problem of the division of humanity in rich and poor parts can only be resolved with non-traditional means, in other words by introducing young people of poor areas to modern tools. The great success of mobile telephony worldwide is very promising and if it could be reproduced in the areas of computers, internet and education, humanity would be transformed for the better.
The above do not of course mean that the transistor guarantees us a prosperous future. There are serious hurdles and questions ahead:
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Data recording and storage has become so cheap and starts to become so abundant that fears of a surveillance society are not unfounded. Will we be able to introduce rational rules that balance logic with personal life and choices?
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The growth of our transistor based technology and society is unfortunately counterbalanced by environmental problems and the destruction of our planet as we know it. Will we be able to use our technology to reverse the effects of overpopulation and finally strike balance between human activity and nature?
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Modern transistors are reaching their limits in terms of both efficiency and minimum possible size. The performance gains of the last few decades will be impossible to reproduce indefinitely. Will new technologies replace or work in parallel with current transistor based technology to avoid the stalemate?
It is certain that transistor technology will accompany us for many many more years, and that humanity has benefited enormously from this tiny component. A huge “thank you” to its inventor Julius Edgar Lilienfeld and also to William Shockley, John Bardeen & Walter Brattain that created the first working prototype 60 years ago.
Link: Wikipedia
