FABLE: When The Semiconductor Industry Was Wrong

Germanium, the material then used to make transistors, did not withstand high temperatures so limiting its applications.

Silicon was more robust but no one could make a silicon transistor.

At the 1954 annual meeting of the Institute of Radio Engineers many speakers talked about the barriers to making a silicon transistor.

The consensus was that it would be many years before a silicon transistor could be made.

Then an engineer from a company which had only entered the semiconductor industry the year before, got up to speak.

"Contrary to what my colleagues have told you about the bleak prospects for silicon transistors", he started off, "I happen to have a few of them here in my pocket."

The company was Texas Instruments. The engineer was Gordon Teal.

MORAL: The consensus view can be wrong.