Programmable Devices and Systems

Abstract

The invention of the transistor was announced in 1948 and the first commercial equipment using transistors was available in the early 1950s. Development of improved production techniques, especially the planar process, led to the first tentative integration of circuits about a decade later, and after small scale and medium scale integration, large scale integration was introduced in hand-held calculators and similar equipment in the late 1960s. The first microprocessor, announced in 1971, was a ‘spin-off’ from the calculator work and since then there has been a rapid development in these very large scale integrated circuits.