IEEE Solid-States Circuits Magazine - Summer 2023 - 18

GUEST EDITORIAL
Alvin Loke
Celebrating the 75th Anniversary of the Transistor:
Giving the Wheel a Run for Its Place in History
C
Can your children, let alone you
yourself, imagine surviving a single
day without Wi-Fi or cellular? Or a
world where your grandparents'
multidecade record collection cannot
be stored in a single USB stick?
How about spending many weeks
hunting down the chemical formula
of heme, the oxygen-carrying part
of red blood cells (something I did
for high school biology homework)?
Seriously? Simply inconceivable.
And voilà, with an instantaneous
online search, the formula
of heme is C34
H32 O4
N4
Fe.
The device that has
enabled and transformed
our society in unimaginable
ways-the transistor-
officially turned 75 years
old on 23 December
2022. And with the demonstration
of the first
monolithic integrated
circuit (IC) in 1960
and first CMOS IC in
1965, the integration of transistors
has increased roughly 10-fold every
decade with disruptive new applications
and innovative products
constantly emerging. In just more
than 50 years of CMOS miniaturization,
the transistor has shrunk by
1,000,000× with 3,500× greater performance
at 60,000× lower cost and
90,000× more energy efficiency. To
put
things in perspective,
if car
technology progressed at the same
pace as semiconductors, a VolkswaDigital
Object Identifier 10.1109/MSSC.2023.3287374
Date of current version: 20 August 2023
18 SUMMER 2023
gen Beetle would go 300,000 mi/h,
cost US$0.04, and travel 2,000,000
mi on a single gallon of gas! And
the appetite for semiconductor
technology continues to be insatiable.
Already at US$553 billion in
2022, the semiconductor annual
market
revenue is projected to
The device that
has enabled and
transformed
our society in
unimaginable
ways-the
transistor-
officially turned
75 years
old on 23
December 2022.
surpass US$1 trillion by 2030. Simply
inconceivable.
In this summer 2023 issue of
IEEE Solid-State Circuits Magazine,
we humbly attempt to pay a historical
tribute to the
transistor and its circuit
applications with
seven exciting invited
articles authored by
some of our pioneers
and luminar ies from
industry and academia.
To begin, Auth and Shankar
[A1] walk us through
the progressive evolution
of the structure and architecture
of the transistor,
bringing us to the 3D FinFET. Next,
Nagel and McAndrew [A2] describe
how transistor models-the critical
bridge between technologists and
designers-have advanced through
the decades. The next four articles
walk us through memory lane in
four circuit categories. Ikeda [A3]
reflects on the progress of digital
circuits, while Chae et al. [A4]
offer an analogous glimpse of analog
circuits. Chang et al. [A5] cover
transformational memory technologies
and circuits, while Razavi [A6]
recounts the historical milestones
in RF circuit development. Finally,
IEEE SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS MAGAZINE
Collaert [A7] offers her perspectives
on advanced transistor
architectures
on the horizon and major IC
trends for the coming decades.
I am personally indebted to the
authors for enthusiastically accepting
the task and contributing these
great articles while working under
tight publication timelines. I would
also like to thank the many anonymous
reviewers
for
providing
detailed and constructive feedback
to the authors, also doing so under
tight schedules. Finally, I owe special
thanks to Editor-in-Chief Leo
Belostotski for this special opportunity
to serve as your Guest Editor
and for his support and guidance
throughout the publication process
in making this issue a reality.
Admittedly, these seven articles
alone can in no way capture the
full impact of the transistor. There
are multiple circuit topics that have
not been covered, such as clocking,
wireline communication, power
management, and imaging circuits
to name just a few. Furthermore,
we did not even attempt to
include ancillary domains, such as
design automation, test, and failure
analysis, that are ever so essential
for
successful commercialization.
Nonetheless, as these articles
reflect on the amazing progress
already achieved in the first 75 years,
imagine the societal impact and
transformations yet to be created
by future generations of IC innovators.
But for now, I sadly cannot
imagine a single day without Wi-Fi
or cellular. Enjoy the articles!
https://orcid.org/0009-0009-7908-6743
IEEE Solid-States Circuits Magazine - Summer 2023

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