From vacuum tubes to 13 sextillion transistors: the evolution of modern electronics
The digital world we inhabit was built on a series of monumental shifts. It began with the discovery of the electron and the bulky vacuum tube, eventually leading to the mass production of the MOSFET—a device so ubiquitous that an estimated 13 sextillion have been manufactured.
The foundation of electronics was laid in the late 19th century. Following Karl Ferdinand Braun's 1874 development of the crystal detector, Sir Joseph John Thomson identified the electron in 1897. This era of vacuum tubes enabled the rise of radio, radar, and long-distance telephony. However, these early components were limited by their size and heat, necessitating the invention of the transistor at Bell Labs by John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain in 1947.
A pivotal moment arrived between 1955 and 1960 with the invention of the MOSFET at Bell Labs. As the first truly compact, scalable, and affordable transistor, it became the most widely used electronic device in history. To solve the growing complexity of circuits, Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce developed the integrated circuit, allowing components to be unified on a single semiconductor block. This innovation enabled the transition from small-scale integration in the early 1960s to processors containing billions of transistors by 2008.
The industry's geography has shifted dramatically over decades. While Japanese firms like Sony and Hitachi dominated the 1960s, and the U.S. led in the 1980s, the manufacturing center moved toward East Asia starting in the 1970s. This shift saw the United States' share of semiconductor manufacturing capacity drop from 37% in 1990 to 12% by 2022. Today, Taiwan stands as the primary global source for advanced semiconductors, followed by nations including South Korea, the United States, Japan, Singapore, and China.
Source: Electronics
