Short answers, pulled from the story.
Karl Ferdinand Braun developed the crystal detector in 1874, marking the first semiconductor device ever created. This invention established the foundation for all subsequent electronic components.
John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain invented the first working point-contact transistor at Bell Labs in 1947. Thomas J. Watson Jr. ordered all future IBM products to use transistors after April 1955 when the IBM 608 calculator launched.
An estimated 13 sextillion MOSFETs have been manufactured between 1960 and 2018 alone. The MOSFET was invented at Bell Labs between 1955 and 1960 as a truly compact alternative that became the most widely used electronic component in the world.
Analog circuits utilize a continuous range of voltage or current for signal processing operations while digital circuits operate based on discrete voltage levels labeled as logic zero and logic one. Boolean algebra forms the basis of all digital computers and microprocessor devices.
Taiwan has become the world's leading source of advanced semiconductors followed by South Korea and China. The United States global share of semiconductor manufacturing capacity fell from 37 percent in 1990 to 12 percent in 2022.