The transistor is one of the 20th century’s most important inventions. It revolutionized technology and launched the Information Age. Its creation is a dramatic story of top secret research, serendipitous accidents, collaborative genius and clashing egos. Transistorized!, the one hour documentary (originally aired on PBS), tells the compelling story of the history of the transistor and the scientists who discovered it. They include William Shockley, who assembled the team at Bell Labs that built the first working transistors, but whose driving ego ultimately ended their collaboration; John Bardeen, a theoretical genius whose profound insights paved the way to the final discovery; and Walter Brattain, whose persistent tinkering led to the breakthrough that resulted in the first transistor.

Host Ira Flatow leads us through a vivid and entertaining tour of the key moments in the history of the transistor — from the scientific breakthroughs early in the 20th century that set the stage for the invention, through the frustrations and serendipitous accidents that made the first transistor work, to the evolution of the first transistorized products and the birth of Silicon Valley. All inextricably interwoven with the tale of the brilliant collaboration and dramatic demise of the team that made the transistor possible.

Biography:

There is plenty of material publicly available on the history of the transistor and of course all the theory and physics and engineering behind it. A good starting point can be:

Some links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor

The invention of the first transistor at Bell Labs was named an IEEE Milestone in 2009. See https://ethw.org/Milestones:Invention_of_the_First_Transistor_at_Bell_Telephone_Laboratories,_Inc.,_1947

Other Milestones include the inventions of the junction transistor in 1948 and the MOSFET in 1959. See most of these milestones at https://ethw.org/Milestones:List_of_IEEE_Milestones

Reading Material:

Attached to this link is the following PDF: IEEE JOURNAL OF SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS, VOL. 32, NO. 12, DECEMBER 1997, "A History of the Invention of the Transistor and Where It Will Lead Us", William F. Brinkman, Member, IEEE, Douglas E. Haggan, and William W. Troutman

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