Evolution of Transistors: Humble Beginnings to the Ubiquitous Present

In 2022, IBISWorld reported that ∼93% of American households own at least one computer. In fact, most of us are very much plugged into either our smartphones or computers or both for a significant portion of our lives [1]. Every one of these devices is powered by billions of transistors; the most powerful desktop CPU today, Intel’s 13th-generation Raptor Lake, is powered by ∼12 billion transistors. Just to give some context into the enormity of this number, the first transistor was developed by J. Bardeen and W. Brattain in 1947, 75 years ago (Figure 1). Intel’s cutting-edge Pentium 4 microprocessor introduced at the dawn of the 21st century in 2000 contained 42 million transistors. Today’s microprocessors have ∼300 times as many transistors as they did, just about 20 years back. While both the invention and commercialization of transistors were responsible for the birth of Silicon Valley, the explosive scaling and evolution of transistor technology have both fueled growth far beyond that of Silicon Valley. Advances from medical innovations to highly complex simulations to sophisticated artificial intelligence all have been made possible in one way or another by the evolution of transistor technology in the last few decades.