Semiconductors are commonly made from silicon., This helped give Silicon Valley its name., William Shockley founded Shockley Semiconductor., Some of his employees later founded Fairchild Semiconductors., Other former employees later founded Intel., Intel became a major computer chip maker., Computers first used mechanical relays., Then they began using vacuum tubes., Transistors later replaced vacuum tubes., Transistors are much smaller than vacuum tubes., They are also faster and more reliable., Modern computers contain very small transistors., These transistors can switch millions of times per second., The development of transistors helped make computers smaller and cheaper., The next challenge was using transistors to perform actual computations.

Computing

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