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Transistor prototype photo

Here is a more clear photo of the " first " transistor that I used as an avatar for a short time. A square centimeter can now hold what, a few billion, maybe a trillion transistors ? Actual physical problems of an atomic size nature are the current bottle neck is what I hear. The transistor is maybe 7 times the size of a silicon atom? I may be mistaken on that ratio but in the ballpark I think.TRANSISTER 1.1.png
 

Harald Kapp

Moderator
Moderator
The transistor is maybe 7 times the size of a silicon atom?
Unlikely.
This site states that
Today’s transistors are about 70 silicon atoms wide
.
I cannot verify the statement, but it sounds plausible to me. This is for top notch technology with a so called feature size of 7 nm. Early MOSFETs hat feature sizes of >1000 nm, 10000 times the size of a silicon atom.

The image shows the first transistor, which had a separation of the contacts of ~ 4 µm (Wikipedia) and therefore was even bigger.
 
Interesting site. Thanks. The accompanying photo file concerns Iowa State University, located in Ames, Iowa. I was born and raised 8 miles from Ames so I like to occasionally shill for them. I did not attend ISU but did many visits. When I studied electronics, I did some written or maybe oral report on transistors and used an analogy of a gate value in a water system. As a young person, vacuum tubes held mystery for me. The odd thing is, not until just a couple months ago did I notice anyone refer to a vacuum tube as a valve. Maybe that is more of a European thing? FIRST COMPUTER 1.1.png
 

bertus

Moderator
Hello,

I have extracted the article pages and reduced the pages from the very large PDF.

Bertus
 

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Tube, valve and vacuum seem quite common. But then again, I am in UK.
They are still available and popular with guitar amplifiers and effects.
Quite funny how the different terms are used.
“My valve amp isn’t working”, “have you checked the tubes?”.

Martin
 
It is funny that you weigh your money (gold bars?) in pounds and we measure our money in dollars.
It is also funny that you drive on the wrong side of the road but we drive on the right side.
Your lorry is our truck, etc.
 
Unlikely.
This site states that
.
I cannot verify the statement, but it sounds plausible to me. This is for top notch technology with a so called feature size of 7 nm.
------
I recall reading pre-Covid that TSMC was pushing the technology to achieve an economical yield of 5nm SDRAM. This new technology required much higher activation energies in a vacuum and I suspected, arcing or Partial Discharge was causing lower yields. But I'm a bit hazy on the details.

[mod edit: corrected the quoted part}
 
It is funny that you weigh your money (gold bars?) in pounds and we measure our money in dollars.
It is also funny that you drive on the wrong side of the road but we drive on the right side.
Your lorry is our truck, etc.
Thru out the world those that despise the worship of money generally phase it, " Worshiping the Almighty Dollar. " Not the Almighty Pound or franc or yen or peso.
 
They were extolling amazement that the 1st transistor was even smaller than sub-miniature tubes.
Back in the day, I had a Sansui (sic?) tube type audio amplifier. It had a transformer about the size of a small toaster. I will contend that that amp had a much "richer" sound than the solid state amps of the time. It has been mentioned to me, and I am inclined to agree, that the timber of the audio out was sweetened by the inherent flaws of the amplifier tubes. Because of the physical structure of the tube with its various control grids, these grids were susceptible to sound waves and other ambient wave forms, resulting in minuscule vibrations. Also, I'll guess that a small amount of "splatter" of free electrons was present inside the tubes. The results of these attributes was a sound witch could be compared to reverb or depth of audio. I know there was one designer that made a sound system that intentionally built in an approximate delay of 0.2 seconds from one channel out to the other. Windows Media Player has a similar tool available in its enhancements window.
 
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