Aubrey C.
Tolentino September 4 2019
BSCPE – 5
CPEN 111
Assignment # 2
Brief History of Microelectronics
1925 - Vacuum tubes for almost all complex circuits (switches, amplifiers).
1935 - Simple solid-state diodes marketed: made of Se, PbS or Si.
1935 – a patent was issued to O. Heil for a field effect triode.
1940 - First commercial sources of high-purity Si and Ge. Needed for mixer and detector
diodes used in radar, which was newly-developed concurrent with WWII.
1947 - The first integrated transistor (Bell telephone laboratories) by John Bardeen, Walter
Brattain and William Shockley. This led to 1956 Nobel Prize in physics for all three.
1947 - Germanium Point Contact Transistor.
1952 - Shockley invents junction transistor, and Gordon Teal/Gordon Sparks reduce it to
practice. Replaces point-contact version with its reliability problems.
1953 - CK722, one of the best known transistor was introduced by Raytheon.
1954 – William Shockley left Bell Labs to starts its own company in Palo Alto, CA. – Silicon
Valley.
1954 - First Si-based solar cell.
1955 – RCA introduced the 2N109 (Germanium PNP Alloy Junction) as reliable germanium
audio transistor and used in many transistorized radios.
1958 - The first integrated circuit available as a monolithic chip (flip-flop).
1958 - The first field effect transistor was working. It was called “Tecnitron” by its creator, S.
Teszner, working in France.
1958 - Shockley invents IMPATT diode for microwave generation. Is forerunner of today’s
wireless communication (e.g., cell phones).
1958 - Integrated Circuit was invented by two different people, Jack Kilby (TI) required wires;
Robert Noyce (Fairchild) used evaporated aluminium.
1959 - Fairchild introduced Planar Transistor.
1959 - RCA was working on FETs.
1959 - Jack Kilby (of TI) files patent for first integrated circuit formed in situ on a single piece of
semiconductor. (IC contains all needed active and passive elements and interconnects.)
1961 – Fairchild, Integrated circuit developed by Robert Noyce was the first commercially
available, it was the Flip – Flop.
1962 - NPN Transistor.
1962 - RCA was fabricating multipurpose logic block comprising 16 MOSFETs on a single chip.
1962 - Robert Noyce (Fairchild) patents another version of the IC, leading to heated legal
battles with Kilby.
1966 - First year Si-based circuit sales outstrip Ge. Si has better high-T performance and forms
a better oxide in situ.
1971 - The first 4bit microprocessor (intel 4004).
1972 - The first 8bit microprocessor (intel 8008).
1981 - The first IBM PC.