Overview

True revolutions in technology are relatively rare. They mark radical departures from one way of life to another. The use of tools, the invention of movable type, and the construction of the atomic bomb are examples of developments that changed society in a fundamental way. The microelectronics revolution that followed the development of the integrated circuit in 1959 has again remade the world as we know it. In our lifetimes, it has propelled us into the era we call the information age.

Background

The year 1958 marked the tenth birthday of the transistor, a tiny device used to boost electrical signals as they are transferred through it. Transistors were slow to find wide commercial application until 1954, when they were used to produce portable radios. Compared with the bulky vacuum tubes they...