History of electronic engineering

This article details the history of electronics engineering. Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary (1972) defines <a href="/facts/Electronics/E4JhgISq">electronics</a> as "The science and technology of the conduction of electricity in a vacuum, a gas, or a semiconductor, and devices based thereon".
<a href="/facts/Electronics_engineering/WCSVulpu">Electronics engineering</a> as a <a href="/facts/Profession/c8sm76JR">profession</a> sprang from technological improvements in the <a href="/facts/Telegraph/JhRYDSDu">telegraph</a> industry during the late 19th century and in the <a href="/facts/Radio/XFr909M2">radio</a> and <a href="/facts/Telephone/P7uEgWQX">telephone</a> industries during the early 20th century. People gravitated to radio, attracted by the technical fascination it inspired, first in receiving and then in transmitting. Many who went into broadcasting in the 1920s had become "amateurs" in the period before <a href="/facts/World_War_I/vITTUanQ">World War I</a>. The modern discipline of electronics engineering was to a large extent born out of telephone-, radio-, and <a href="/facts/Television/X4YG5nT1">television</a>-equipment development and the large amount of electronic-systems development during <a href="/facts/World_War_II/2efV5L1U">World War II</a> of <a href="/facts/Radar/jk9BTbFA">radar</a>, <a href="/facts/Sonar/0Rg2G40e">sonar</a>, communication systems, and advanced munitions and weapon systems. In the interwar years, the subject was known as <a href="/facts/Radio_engineering/LoEgyLgS">radio engineering</a>. The word electronics began to be used in the 1940s In the late 1950s, the term electronics engineering started to emerge.
Electronic laboratories (<a href="/facts/Bell_Labs/fKP5Gk0H">Bell Labs</a>, for instance) created and subsidized by large corporations in the industries of radio, television, and telephone equipment, began churning out a series of electronic advances. The <a href="/facts/Electronics_industry/YX8VCvKC">electronics industry</a> was revolutionized by the inventions of the first <a href="/facts/Transistor/Bmr8zwL0">transistor</a> in 1948, the <a href="/facts/Integrated_circuit/fjn6vg7C">integrated circuit</a> chip in 1959, and the <a href="/facts/Silicon/cgWx0hdr">silicon</a> <a href="/facts/MOSFET/eTDJT2Km">MOSFET</a> (metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor) in 1959. In the UK, the subject of electronics engineering became distinct from <a href="/facts/Electrical_engineering/YYXW1KLW">electrical engineering</a> as a <a href="/facts/University/skaJt2Io">university</a>-degree subject around 1960. (Before this time, students of electronics and related subjects like radio and telecommunications had to enroll in the <a href="/facts/Electrical_engineering/YYXW1KLW">electrical engineering</a> department of the university as no university had departments of electronics. Electrical engineering was the nearest subject with which electronics engineering could be aligned, although the similarities in subjects covered (except mathematics and electromagnetism) lasted only for the first year of three-year courses.)
Electronics engineering (even before it acquired the name) facilitated the development of many technologies including <a href="/facts/Wireless_telegraphy/g1p5PaPA">wireless telegraphy</a>, <a href="/facts/Radio/XFr909M2">radio</a>, <a href="/facts/Television/X4YG5nT1">television</a>, <a href="/facts/Radar/jk9BTbFA">radar</a>, <a href="/facts/Computer/SQe1aK05">computers</a>, and <a href="/facts/Microprocessor/Fx9CaQht">microprocessors</a>.

History of electronic engineering open-in-new

History of electronic engineering