On December 23, 1947 William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain   are credited with inventing the transistor at Bell Labs.  As we discussed earlier we began with very large components.  I remember the Vax 11/780 that I managed in 1980 where the Central Processing Unit was built on 29 separate circuit boards!.  There were issues early on and they switched to silicone and resolved other problems and by 1957 transistors began their rise to fame.