The First Transistor ever made, built in 1947 - Bell Labs.jpg

1947–1971 CE · transistor, integrated-circuit and microprocessor milestones · Americas · Technology

Transistor, electronic computing and microprocessors

The 1947 point-contact transistor, later junction and MOS transistors, integrated circuits in the late 1950s and a commercial microprocessor in 1971 progressively concentrated electronic switching and computation.

Atlas dossier · Cold War & Decolonization

Free device narration · synchronized English captions · transcript available

Why it matters

Solid-state electronics did not replace vacuum tubes overnight or arise from one device: materials research, fabrication, software, public procurement and global manufacturing made digital communication and personal computing possible.

Date: 1947–1971 CE · transistor, integrated-circuit and microprocessor milestones
Historical setting: Cold War & Decolonization · Americas
People & communities: John Bardeen · Walter Brattain · William Shockley · Mohamed Atalla · Dawon Kahng · Jack Kilby · Robert Noyce · Federico Faggin · engineers and fabrication workers

A chain of devices, not one invention

The 1947 point-contact transistor proved a solid-state switching effect. Junction transistors, Atalla and Kahng’s MOS transistor, independently developed integrated circuits and the 1971 Intel 4004 each solved different problems. The range therefore follows miniaturisation through selected milestones rather than treating every computer as an enlarged first transistor.

Nobel Prize in Physics 1956 ↗

Systems and labour made chips consequential

Materials purification, photolithography, public and military procurement, circuit design, programming and factory labour turned devices into computing systems. Production spread through global supply chains with uneven credit and working conditions. The microprocessor endpoint marks commercial integration, not the arrival of personal computing everywhere.

National Museum of American History: Intel 4004 ↗

Illustrated sequence

A visual presentation accompanying this entry. Read each image’s attribution to distinguish archival records, later depictions and reconstructions.

IMAGE 1

Visual record

Rights-cleared archival or official image · CC BY 2.0

The First Transistor ever made, built in 1947 - Bell Labs.jpg — Windell Oskay from Sunnyvale, CA, USA; CC BY 2.0; via Wikimedia Commons

Source and reuse terms ↗ · Read the licence ↗

Interpretation note

Evidence, memory and historical debate

This dossier distinguishes the event’s basic chronology from later arguments about meaning, responsibility and legacy. When comparing religious, national, Indigenous or scholarly interpretations, consult the primary and institutional sources above alongside peer-reviewed historical work.

Elsewhere in the world

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