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 Hoerni, pointed Hoerni and Noyce to an error in the conclusions of Frosch. Frosch used a thin oxide layer, whereas the experiments of 1957–1958 showed that a thick layer of oxide can stop the phosphorus diffusion. Armed with this knowledge, by March 12, 1959 Hoerni made the first prototype of a planar transistor, and on May 1, 1959 filed a patent application for the invention of the planar process. In April 1960, Fairchild launched the planar transistor 2N1613, and by October 1960 completely abandoned the mesa transistor technology. By the mid-1960s, the planar process has become the main technology