Shockley eventually left Bell Labs to start his own company, , in Palo Alto, California. He wanted to mass-produce silicon transistors.

It wasn't pretty—it looked like a paperclip touching a rock—but it worked. It was the first solid-state amplifier in history.

William Shockley was furious. Although he was the team leader, he had missed the breakthrough because he was focused on a different theory. For weeks, he sat at home, brooding, while Bardeen and Brattain prepared to announce the invention.

: From the massive power semiconductors in a linear laboratory power supply to the billions of 22nm-wide transistors inside a smartphone processor, these components are everywhere. Key Transistor Types You’ll Find on the Site

Because a tiny whisper of current at the Base can control a screaming shout of current at the Collector. This is amplification . It turns a weak signal (like a radio wave) into a strong signal (like audio to a speaker).