In the late 1970s, comedian Steve Martin famously said, "Let's get small." He wasn't talking about transistors (which, amazingly, never really took off as a potent comedy topic) but they seem to have taken his advice anyway. Transistors -- those tiny components of a semiconductor that control the flow of electrical current and help computers work their way through complex calculations in a flash -- have made a nice living just getting smaller and smaller. Without them, pretty much everything we use in our daily lives, from cars to computers, iPads to smartphones and anything else digital in between, would be either useless or functioning a whole lot differently. 

Transistors have come a long way from their beginnings at Bell Labs in the late 1940s. The material they're made of has changed. They've made a rapid-fire journey from the research laboratory to the mass production line. And then, of course, there's their ever-shrinking size. Whereas in earlier times it was a monumental challenge just to make a portable radio that used transistors, today's transistors are smaller than the diameter of a human hair and live in naked-eye invisibility at the nano-scale size.

With the ever-increasing need for computing power just to live our daily lives, things can only get, well, smaller. Read on as we look at the development of the incredible shrinking transistor. We'll retrace its growth (in power rather than size) from the Nobel-winning work at Bell Labs to its use in today's processors, some of which are home to 1 million transistors. This little device might just be the perfect example of big things coming in small packages.

Transistors: getting smaller (and smarter) all the time. Image Credit: Lester Lefkowitz/Getty

Who developed the transistor?

William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain were all awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics thanks to their work developing the field of semiconductors and transistors. The trio worked at Bell Labs in the 1940s, and during their brief collaboration, they made a prototype transistor using gold foil wrapped around a piece of plastic, resting on a chunk of germanium (the semiconductor), with an electrical connection attached to it. It may sound simple by today's standards, but it worked, and it laid the groundwork for modern transistors that permit, limit and magnify electrical currents.

How have transistors changed over time?

Today's transistors are much smaller than the original ones made by Bell Labs, and germanium is no longer the material of choice for building them. George Teal, a scientist working for Texas Instruments, developed the first silicon transistor. Silicon quickly became the preferred material for use in transistors because it is a cheaper, more reliable alternative to germanium. Silicon is also ideal for use in computers. Today's transistors are smaller than the diameter of a human hair! That means that millions, or even billions, of transistors can be loaded into electronic gadgets and computers, where they complete countless tasks and calculations very quickly.

When did consumer products start using transistors?

Texas Instruments was the first company to realize transistors' potential to change the world. Pat Haggerty, the president of Texas Instruments in the 1950s, was determined to introduce transistors to the average consumer. Haggerty joined forces with a small company from Indiana to develop the first transistor radio. The idea of manufacturing something so small was so novel that Haggerty not only had to figure out how to build a radio using transistors, he also had to produce all the little components necessary for its operation. He even had to design the radio's exterior. Finally though, on October 18, 1954, Texas Instruments introduced the first pocket-sized transistor radio, called the TR-1. When the company began mass producing transistors for its radios, it really ushered in the age of modern electronics.