When Bell Labs invented the semiconductor triode in 1948, they knew it was going to be a big deal in the electronics world. So they wanted a really cool name for it. Something shorter and zippier. Unable to decide, they asked employees to vote on a list of possibilities.
Possibilities included the Crystal Triode, and the Iotatron.
The winner though, was a name we all know very well: Transistor.
The transistor is, arguably, the biggest discovery in the history of electronics. A transistor is an electronic switch/amplifier...so simple and yet this little device spawned the development of the digital computer.
The first transistor was very large (see pic). But they didn't stay that way for long. today in the midst of exploding semiconductor technology, more than 2.6 billion of them can be fit on a silicon chip the size of your fingernail.
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