Digital Logic Families

A bit of history
• The first transistors were fabricated in 1947 at Bell Laboratories (Bell Labs) by Brattain with Bardeen providing the theoretical background and Shockley managed the activity.
– The trio received a Nobel Prize in Physics for their work in 1956.
• The transistor was called a point-contact transistor and was a type of bipolar junction transistor (BJT).
• The theory on field effect transistors (FETs) was
developed much earlier than our understanding
of BJTs
– First patent on FETs dates from 1925
• Julius Edgar Lilienfeld, an Austro-Hungarian physicist
• However, the quality of the semiconductor and
the oxide materials were barriers to developing
good working devices.
– The first FET was not invented until 1959
• Dawon Kahng and Martin M. (John) Atalla of Bell Labs
Integrated Circuits
• Integrated circuits (ICs) are chips, pieces of
semiconductor material, that contain all of the
transistors, resistors, and capacitors necessary
to create a digital circuit or system.
– The first ICs were fabricated using Ge BJTs in 1958.
• Jack Kirby of Texas Instruments, Nobel Prize in 2000
• Robert Noyes of Fairchild Semiconductors fabricated
the first Si ICs in 1959.