Answer :
Integrated circuits (ICs) and transistors have been essential in the development of computers and have revolutionized the way they are designed, built, and operated. Here, we will investigate what that means and how they have helped enable miniaturized, reliable, and efficient computing devices.
Transistors
Transistors are semiconductors that work in electronic circuits as electronic switches or amplifiers. Before the creation of transistors, computers used vacuum tubes, which were large, temperamental, and power-hungry. In the late 1940s, researchers at Bell Labs—the most important among them being William Shockley, John Bardeen, and Walter Brattain—made a significant invention: the transistor.
Transistors are way much smaller than vacuum tubes, making them more rigid, and consume just a tiny fraction of the power, three aspects that are very crucial in making them ideal for use in electronic devices.
Why Transistors are Important
Transistors shrunk the computers and made them more reliable. They made it possible to manufacture solid-state electronic devices, which therefore opened up the possibility for miniaturization of the computer components. The transistors, which took place over the bulky vacuum tubes with tiny devices, made the computer engineers greatly reduce the size and weight of computers, while at the same time increasing their reliability and energy efficiency of the machines. Similarly, the transistors made the computer fast and versatile, propelling the breakthrough of computing technology.
Integrated Circuits (ICs)
Sometimes, integrated circuits are referred to as microchips or simply chips. In the late 1950s, the invention of ICs was made by Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments and Robert Noyce at Fairchild Semiconductor, marking the second milestone in computer technology. They helped integrate several transistors, resistors, and other electronic components on one single chip, making ICs efficient in terms of manufacturing time and cost.
Significance of Integrated Circuits
Electronics became one of the high-volume, small-size, low-cost fields of complex electronic systems due to integrated circuits. In that epoch, ICs opened up significant possibilities for miniaturization in computers. The ability to integrate more powerful, smaller computers from mainframe down to personal computers and, finally smartphones and tablets was hence possible by embedding several transistors and other components into one chip.
Contributions to Miniaturization, Reliability, and Efficiency:
The combination of transistors with integrated circuits has played a critical role in miniaturization, reliability, and efficiency in computing devices. It was through this that millions of transistors could be combined into a single IC, enabling the computer engineers to create highly integrated and compacted systems that further reduced the sizes of computers from room-sized mainframes into pocket-sized smartphones. This miniaturization increases the portability of computers and makes the reliability factor more effective by reducing the risk of electronic components' failure and increasing their heat dissipation. Finally, integrated circuits have improved the efficiency of computing devices by making the optimization of power consumption possible for a given level of processing speed, enhancing the speed of processing and, therefore, reducing the needed time for computations. This has been possible, in particular, by using power-efficient processors.
In short, the invention of the transistor and integrated circuits completely turned around computer development.
