From radio tubes to microchip — the history of the electronics trade

Electronics is about controlling electrical signals — often small, weak signals that carry information or control rather than power. That is the difference between high current that drives motors and lights, and low voltage that makes a device think. The trade is young but it has in less than a hundred years transformed the world. Here is the journey.

§Vacuum tubes – the childhood of electronics

In the early 1900s people learned to control an electric current with an electron tube (radio tube). The tube could amplify a weak signal and control a larger current — the basic idea behind all electronics. This made radio early computers and much else possible. But tubes were large hot fragile and power-hungry; an early computer could fill an entire room and use enormous amounts of power.

§Transistor changes everything

The decisive breakthrough came in 1947 when researchers at Bell Labs in the USA invented the transistor. It could do the same as the vacuum tube — amplify and control signals — but it was tiny cool durable and used only a fraction of the power. The transistor is the cornerstone of all modern electronics and its invention is considered one of the most important technological leaps in modern times.

§The integrated circuit

The next step was to assemble many transistors on one small plate of semiconductor material – the integrated circuit (IC), invented in the late 1950s. Instead of soldering hundreds of individual parts together, you could now manufacture an entire circuit on a chip smaller than a fingernail. This made electronics cheaper, smaller and far more reliable and paved the way for complexity to grow rapidly.

§The microprocessor and the digital world

In the early 1970s it succeeded in putting an entire computer's arithmetic unit on a single chip — the microprocessor. Now you could build a small 'brain' into all sorts of things: calculators measuring equipment machines and later the home computer. At the same time electronics became digital: instead of working with signals that slide smoothly up and down (analogue) digital electronics work with clear one and zero states that are less sensitive to noise and easy to process with logic.

§Electronics becomes invisible and ubiquitous.

In recent decades craftsmanship and the old methods have come strongly back. Many consumers demand again long-fermented bread sourdough whole grain and quality ingredients instead of quick industrial bread. Modern bakery therefore combines the old craftsmanship with new knowledge about flour fermentation and flavour — and the baker is again become a specialist people want to drive to.

§Timeline — the major shift in electronics

§What the story teaches an electronics technician

Electronics has gone from large, hot tubes to chips you can barely see, but the basic idea is the same: to control electrical signals so they carry information and control. If you understand that a transistor is fundamentally a small switch and amplifier, you understand the core of everything from the first vacuum tube to the latest microchip. The details change — the principle remains.

“The entire digital world rests on a simple idea: controlling one current with another. We learned this with the radio tube and perfected it with the transistor.”

— Professional view on the roots of electronics.