1947 A picture of the first transistor ever assembled, invented in Bell Labs in 1947. It was called a point contact transistor because amplification or transistor action occurred when two pointed metal contacts were pressed onto the surface of the semiconductor material. The contacts, which are supported by a wedge shaped piece of insulating material, are placed extremely close together so that they are separated by only a few thousandths of an inch. The contacts are made of gold and the semiconductor is germanium. The semiconductor rests on a metal base. Image reprinted with the permission of Lucent Technologies, Inc./Bell Labs.
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