Absolute Gadget

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Happy Birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear transistor, happy birthday to you. Yes, the humble transistor, which Intel calls “the building block of today’s digital world”, is 60-years-old today.

On 16 December 1947 Bell Labs came up with what Intel also calls “one of the most important inventions of the 20th century”.

The breakthrough came from John Bardeen, William Bradford Shockley, and Walter Houser Brattain.

The trio was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1956.

In case you’re the kind of person who doesn’t care what’s inside their gadgets – and lets face it, not everyone does – then transistors are the fundamental component used to build computer chips.

Intel, the world’s largest manufacturer of microprocessors, is also one of the largest manufacturers of transistors.

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