1) Vacuum triode
In February 1939, Bell Laboratory made a great discovery, the birth of the silicon p_n junction. In 1942, a student named Seymour Benzer in the research group led by Lark_Horovitz at Purdue University discovered that germanium single crystal has excellent rectifying properties that other semiconductors do not have. These two discoveries satisfied the requirements of the U.S. government and paved the way for the subsequent invention of the transistor.
2) Point-contact transistor
After the end of World War II in 1945, the point-contact transistor invented by Shockley and others became the forerunner of the human microelectronics revolution. To this end, Shockley submitted the first transistor patent application for Bell. Finally, the first transistor patent was authorized.
3) Bipolar and unipolar transistors
On the basis of bipolar transistors, Shockley further proposed the concept of unipolar junction transistors in 1952, which is today The so-called junction transistor. Its structure is similar to a pnp or npn bipolar transistor, but there is a depletion layer at the interface of the p_n material to form a rectifying contact between the gate and the source-drain conductive channel. At the same time, the semiconductors at both ends serve as gates. The gate adjusts the current between source and drain.
4) Silicon transistors
Fairchild Semiconductor has grown from a company of a few people to a large enterprise with 12,000 employees.
5) Integrated circuits
After the invention of the silicon transistor in 1954, the huge application prospects of transistors have become increasingly obvious. The next goal for scientists is to further efficiently connect transistors, wires and other devices.
6) Field effect transistor and MOS tube
In 1961, the MOS tube was born. In 1962, Stanley, Heiman and Hofstein, who worked in the RCA Device Integration Research Group, discovered that transistors, namely MOS, could be constructed by diffusion and thermal oxidation of conductive strips, high-resistance channel regions and oxide insulating layers formed on Si substrates. Tube.
7) Microprocessor (CPU)
When Intel was founded, its focus was still on memory sticks. Hoff integrated all the functions of the central processing unit on one chip, plus memory; this was the world's first microprocessor - 4004 (1971). The birth of 4004 marked the beginning of an era. Subsequently, Intel became unstoppable and took the lead in microprocessor research.
In 1989, Intel launched the 80486 processor. In 1993, Intel successfully developed a new generation of processors, which were originally named 80586 according to the usual naming rules. In 1995, Intel launched Pentium_Pro. In 1997, Intel released the Pentium II processor. In 1999 Intel released the Pentium III processor. The Pentium 4 processor was released in 2000.