Transistors   by Chris Woodford. Last updated: September 9, 2016. Your brain contains around 100 billion cells called neurons—the tiny switches that let you think and remember things. Computers contain billions of miniature “brain cells” as well. They’re called transistors and they’re made from silicon, a chemical element commonly found in sand. Transistors have revolutionized electronics since they were first invented over half a century ago by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley. But what are they—and how do they work? Photo: An insect with three legs? No, a typical transistor onRead More

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2000-Jack S. Kilby – Biographical Zhores Alferov, Herbert Kroemer, Jack Kilby The Nobel Committee has asked me to discuss my life story, so I guess I should begin at the beginning. I was born in 1923 in Great Bend, Kansas, which got its name because the town was built at the spot where the Arkansas River bends in the middle of the state. I grew up among the industrious descendents of the western settlers of the American Great Plains. My father ran a small electricRead More

Integrated circuits by Chris Woodford. Last updated: April 18, 2016. Have you ever heard of a 1940s computer called the ENIAC? It was about the same length and weight as three to four double-decker buses and contained 18,000 buzzing electronic switches known as vacuum tubes. Despite its gargantuan size, it was thousands of times less powerful than a modern laptop—a machine about 100 times smaller. If the history of computing sounds like a magic trick—squeezing more and more power into less and less space—it is! What made it possible was the invention ofRead More