"How Europe Missed the Transistor"

Newswise — In May 1949, shortly after Bell Labs announced the invention of the transistor, two German physicists working in Paris invented a strikingly similar device. They called it the transistron. As was true for the Bell Labs transistor, the technology that led to the transistron emerged from wartime research on semiconductor materials, which were sorely needed in radar receivers. In the European case, it was the German radar program that had employed the transistron's inventors, Herbert Matare and Heinrich Welker.

But after the invention made some headlines, the French government lost interest and the two inventors returned to Germany to embark on other work. It was left to the United States to pioneer the transistor, which eventually led to industries worth many billions of dollars. Just how close the French came to a device of their own makes for a fascinating piece of history.