I missed an important 60th birthday yesterday
On July 4th, 1951,
William Shockley announced the creation of the first Junction Transistor.
Earlier in December of 1947, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain announced their first point-contact transistor but that was an incredibly fragile device and required several pieces to be held in mechanical contact. Shockley's junction transistor was the first true solid-state device with the various components chemically assembled onto one substrate.
He was a piece of work in his personal life -- the Wikipedia link at the top of this post only hints at some of the details...
Posted by DaveH at July 5, 2011 11:17 AM