The field of microelectronics began in 1948 when the first transistor was invented. This first transistor was a point-contact transistor, which became obsolete in the 1950s following the development of the bipolar junction transistor (BJT). The first modernday junction field-effect transistor (JFET) was proposed by Shockley (1952). These two types of electronic devices are at the heart of all microelectronic components, but it was the development of integrated circuits (ICs) in 1958 that spawned today's computer industry.
