Alcatel-Lucent 1947, John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, William Shockley of Bell Labs invented the transistor. In 1956, they received a Nobel Prize for their invention. The transistor led to an electronics revolution during the post-war boom. The transition from vacuum tubes to transistors enabled all technologies to be built on a smaller scale and use less electricity. Items that before required large dedicated spaces, could now fit into a home or even on a kitchen counter. In 1954, Gerald Pearson, Darryl Chapin and Calvin Fuller invented the solar cell. Telstar, the first active communications satellite also developed by Bell Labs and launched
Invention of the integrated circuit of electronic devices required reducing the number of their components. The invention of the transistor in 1947 led to the expectation of a new technological revolution. Fiction writers and journalists heralded the imminent appearance of "intelligent machines" and robotization of all aspects of life. Although transistors did reduce the size and power consumption, they could not solve the problem of reliability of complex electronic devices. On the contrary, dense packing of components in small devices hindered their repair. While the reliability of discrete components was brought to the theoretical limit in the 1950s, there was no improvement in the connections