Semiconductor transistor: the incredible shrinking chip

Two Scottish computer engineers with little or no physics knowledge set out to make a semiconductor transistor. This was 50 years ago, and their efforts gained them the Nobel Prize. The versatility of that transistor is now at the heart of the electronics industry. Millions of transistor switches are shrunk down into the microprocessors that are found in computers, mobile phones and almost everything else electrical.

The first transistor took years to plan and make; today more are made every day than there are people on the earth. In the following videos, volunteers struggle to make a transistor using crude technology. There is also an explanation of the remarkable scientific advances that have now made the chip ubiquitous. The two volunteers discover the past while the presenter looks to the future.

The videos include an interview with Gordon Moore, a founder of Intel, about the law of computing that bears his name. It's a rule of thumb that says processor power doubles every eighteen months. The video footage shows how the industry has managed to keep Moore's Law going for several decades. It explains the physics that make chips work, and how the same physics will eventually trip up the industry. It has long been predicted that silicon will run out of steam in the near future, when the fundamental physical limit will be reached and a radical new technology will be needed. For the moment, though, silicon still rules - though increasing power now mainly comes from multiple processor cores (smartphones typically have four and supercomputers can have many thousands) rather than faster individual cores. The radical new technology of quantum computing may change all that.

The final part of the video returns to Silicon Glen and demonstrates how well the transistors built by the two volunteers actually work.

The incredible shrinking chip - part one

The incredible shrinking chip - part two

The incredible shrinking chip - part three

The incredible shrinking chip - part four

The versatile tiny transistor is now at the heart of the electronics industry. In the video clips you have seen the history of the incredible shrinking chip, its Scottish connections, and an explanation of the physics that make chips work as well as a reconstruction of making a transistor using crude techniques.

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The material acknowledged below is Proprietary and used under licence (not subject to Creative Commons Licence). The video extracts are taken from S207 The physical world. Produced by the BBC for the Open University © 2000 The Open University.

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