MOSFET – The Most significant invention of the 20th Century

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What makes a truly world-changing invention?. Of all the inventions of the 20th century just one could be said to have changed the world in such a way that it touches virtually everybody on the planet's lives on a daily basis. It has enabled the most rapid development in technology in history and yet you cant see the vast majority of them directly and their individual job is just to switch on and off. This is the story of the MOSFET and how it changed the world.

Written, researched and presented by Paul Shillito

A big thank you also goes to all our Patreons too :-)
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Intro music by Paul Shillito

[ScottsSynthStuff]

One of the more important features of MOSFETs that you didn't mention is that at full saturation, internal resistance is very low, unlike bipolar transistors. This means MOSFETs are capable of switching very high current loads without generating much heat. This allows for the use of MOSFETs to replace electromechanical relays, as well as for high-speed, high-current switching. This is why our "power bricks" of today (including cell phone chargers!) have evolved from heavy devices containing iron-core step-down transformers, into tiny, switching power supplies capable of producing huge amounts of current from a tiny power supply with very little heat and very high efficiency.

[BruceEEvans]

You have pretty much described my life. I am a retired electrical engineer, born in 1949. In my education, I was trained to design with vacuum tubes but I never used one. When I was a teenager getting a transistor for your birthday meant you got an AM/FM radio. My grandchildren accept cell phones as commonplace. I will probably leave this life before I have great-great-grandchildren, but I would love to know what they are going to experience.

[rvnx]

One more thing that amazes me besides the count of transistors in modern devices is how incredibly reliable they are. Hundreds of thousands to billions of them, sometimes working 24/7 for years, even decades, without failure. It's insane.

[kyleb]

I worked in component engineering as a technician for about 17 years. I cannot stress how good this video was. It mostly hits the high points obviously, but even with all my experience I still learned a thing or two here! Well done guys, bravo! Very impressed!

[GodmanchesterGoblin]

I've been around chips since the mid 70s and I even spent over a decade in the semiconductor industry. This was simply the most well informed, balanced and accurate snapshot of the industry to date that I have ever seen. Well done! Bonus points for the references to Colossus, the Regency radio, and the use of RTL in the Apollo guidance computer.

[placebomessiah]

I’ve watched/read literally hundreds of educational articles since my childhood that attempt to unfold and relate the great enigma of electronic evolution and I cannot overstate the excellence for how gracefully you communicated these concepts. I feel that your refinement in presentation could justify an entirely new channel demonstrating your process. This is so good, I am sending it to my own students.

[hagerty]

13:55 I spent 20 years in semiconductor equipment (Applied Materials, Lam Research and smaller independents), but after about 5 years in systems design and integration I came up with a phrase that I still use in my email signatures: "The more I learn about how chips are made, the more I'm convinced it can't be done."

[InvestmentJoy]

I'm teaching a class on microcontrollers, it blows my mind that a $5 esp32 micro computer has millions of transistors for such a low price. Much more powerful than my $3, 000 desktop from 1996

[jakethompson]

Thank you for a great video on the history of electronics. At 80+ years old, I lived much of the early years that you discussed. I worked at RCA, Texas Instruments, Mostek, and other electronic companies from the late 60's thru the 90's. Knowing where we started, the vacuum tube, to where we are now, is mind boggling.

[Vigo]

As someone who loves learning but sometimes has great difficulty forcing himself through it, I have a lot of respect for how much learning one must do on the front end before making a video like this. Another good one! Keep it up!

[spladam]

I have not seen a video that recognizes the MOSFET for the world changing apex invention that it was. I use them to make analogue preamps as a hobby. As always, thanks for making this video, we appreciate the effort.

[wakeupkrissywakeup]

People don't appreciate this kind of stuff nearly enough. I'm in my 40s now and I've been lucky enough to witness the progression of tech over the past few decades, and it is absolutely mindblowing how far computing has come. I've got a literal pocket supercomputer, millions of times faster than the computer that put a human on the moon. It does literally _everything_ and connects me to the whole world. I can access the entire sum of human knowledge and history in a few taps. That's a real "holy crap!" moment when you really stop and think about it.

[sciologist]

When I went to school we started with tube theory, and by the time I graduated I ended learning the instruction set for the Intel 4000. The 4000 had a glich so they canceled it and mass produced the 4004. Technology was changes so fast, I worked with the Intel's 8000, 8008, 8080, 286, 386, 486 etc...

[dubselectorr]

I do equipment engineering and maintenance for a Semiconductor fab in Santa Barbara, that $120M litho tool you showed is insane. I have only heard about it from those who have worked on them. We have 3 stepping exposure tools (like that) that are from the 90's. 2 Nikons and a massive Cannon running OS9. Still running modern processes. But to keep them running smoothly is a constant challenge..

[bobfk]

The MOSFET is certainly significant and we make use of it everyday but the First big step in solid state was the junction transistor.
Going from a vacuum tube to the first solid state device was a really, really giant step.

[WWIflyingace]

Wow! I do optical coatings for 193nm ArF excimer lasers! These optical coatings have to be incredibly precise to withstand the incredible power needed to make such tiny lithography features. So cool to have my work relevant to a Curious Droid video!

[lorentzinvariant]

I remember when I was a child getting an electronic experiment kit for Christmas in the early ‘70s. It had all these electronic components on a board and terminals for each component and a big box of wires that allowed you to build all kinds of cool electronic devices. It had a chip that had something like 10 transistors on it🤯.

[Tech-Relief]

I think you have produced the simplest and clearest explanation of the progression of electronic devices I have seen and would be recommended to view by anyone learning electronics, well done.

[Carvin]

A couple of key discoveries and inventions in the early days of the MOSFET were 1) the process recipe for growing gate oxide (SiO2) on silicon with low Si/SiO2 interface defect densities. 2) The self-aligned gate where the gate electrode was deposited before source/drain diffusion (or ion implant) and was used as a mask. The gate had to be able to withstand a very high temperature dopant activation anneal so had to be refractive like TiSi, not aluminum. Without those innovations, MOSFETs would just be laboratory curiosities.

[Blinkybills]

Thanks for sharing. Progress in the electronics industry is mind blowing. I studied electronics at diploma level in the 80s and 90s. What I learned then is still relevant in how digital logic is applied in the design of electronic circuits, but the process of miniaturization to the tiny scale devices we have now is truly incredible.