A History Of Silicon

Posted on by Brian Colwell

Silicon, the second most abundant element in Earth’s crust after oxygen, has transformed from a scientific curiosity into the fundamental building block of modern technology. From ancient glass-making to cutting-edge semiconductor fabrication, silicon’s unique properties have made it indispensable to human civilization.

This comprehensive chronology traces silicon’s journey from its discovery in the early 19th century through its revolutionary applications in electronics, solar energy, and materials science. The story of silicon is ultimately the story of how humanity learned to manipulate matter at the atomic scale, creating technologies that have reshaped our world and continue to define our future.

Be sure to check out all other critical raw materials (CRMs), as well.

A History Of Silicon

The history of silicon spans over two centuries of scientific discovery and technological innovation. Beginning with its isolation in 1824 by Jöns Jacob Berzelius, silicon has evolved from a laboratory curiosity to become the cornerstone of the digital age. This element’s journey encompasses breakthroughs in chemistry, physics, materials science, and engineering that have fundamentally transformed human society. From the development of the transistor to the creation of integrated circuits and solar cells, silicon’s unique properties have enabled technologies that power our modern world.

Chronology

  • 1787 – Antoine Lavoisier attempts to reduce silica (silicon dioxide) to isolate pure silicon but fails in his efforts [1]
  • 1808 – Sir Humphry Davy names the element “silicium” but also fails to isolate pure silicon [1]
  • 1811 – Joseph Gay Lussac and Louis Jacques Thénard produce impure amorphous silicon by heating potassium with silicon tetrafluoride, but do not characterize it as a new element [1, 2]
  • 1817 – Thomas Thomson gives the element its present name “silicon,” adding “-on” because he believed silicon was a nonmetal similar to boron and carbon [1, 2]
  • 1823 – Jöns Jacob Berzelius successfully isolates pure silicon for the first time by heating potassium fluorosilicate with potassium metal [1]
  • 1824 – Berzelius produces amorphous silicon using the same method as Gay-Lussac but purifies the product to a brown powder by repeatedly washing it, earning him credit for silicon’s discovery [1, 2]
  • 1824 – Berzelius produces silicon tetrachloride for the first time; silicon tetrafluoride had already been prepared in 1771 by Carl Wilhelm Scheele by dissolving silica in hydrofluoric acid [2]
  • 1824 – Berzelius describes pure silicon as having a metallic luster and being a hard, brittle crystalline solid [3]
  • 1854 – Henri Etienne Sainte-Claire Deville produces crystalline silicon for the first time by electrolyzing a mixture of sodium chloride and aluminum chloride containing approximately 10% silicon [1, 2]
  • 1857 – Friedrich Wöhler discovers the first volatile hydrides of silicon, synthesizing trichlorosilane [2]
  • 1858 – Friedrich Wöhler synthesizes silane (SiH4), a gaseous silicon hydride [2]
  • 1863 – Charles Friedel and James Crafts synthesize tetraethylsilane, the first organosilicon compound [2]
  • 1881 – Robert Sydney Marsden attempts silicon synthesis by dissolving silica in molten silver in a graphite crucible [4]
  • 1882 – Albert Colson attempts silicon synthesis by heating silicon under a stream of ethylene [4]
  • 1891 – Edward Goodrich Acheson accidentally discovers silicon carbide (SiC) while attempting to produce artificial diamonds, heating clay (aluminum silicate) and powdered coke in an iron bowl [4, 5]
  • 1893 – Henri Moissan produces silicon carbide from a mixture of quartz (silicon dioxide) and carbon [5]
  • 1893 – Ferdinand Henri Moissan discovers natural silicon carbide (moissanite) in the Canyon Diablo meteorite in Arizona [4]
  • 1906 – American engineer Greenleaf Whittier Pickard develops the first silicon radio crystal detector [2]
  • 1907 – The phenomenon of electroluminescence is discovered using silicon carbide, with crystals glowing yellow, green, orange or blue, leading to some of the first commercial LEDs [4, 6]
  • 1918 – Jan Czochralski develops a method to grow single crystals of metal, later adapted to produce single-crystal silicon [7, 8]
  • 1940 – Russell Ohl discovers the p-n junction and photovoltaic effects in silicon, fundamental to silicon-based electronic devices [9, 10]
  • 1941 – Techniques for producing high-purity silicon crystals are developed for radar microwave detector crystals during World War II [2]
  • 1946 – Russell Ohl patents the modern silicon junction semiconductor solar cell [11]
  • 1947 – William Shockley theorizes a field-effect amplifier made from silicon (though initially works with germanium) at Bell Labs [2]
  • 1948 – Gordon Teal and John Little adapt the Czochralski method to produce single-crystalline silicon [7, 8]
  • 1950s – The Siemens process for purifying silicon is developed in the late 1950s to produce high-purity silicon for semiconductors [12]
  • 1951 – Gordon Teal grows single crystals of silicon at Bell Labs and “dopes” them with impurities to make silicon solid-state diodes [13]
  • 1954 (January 26) – Morris Tanenbaum fabricates the first silicon transistor at Bell Labs using a grown-junction technique [14, 9]
  • 1954 (April 25) – Bell Laboratories demonstrates the first practical silicon solar cell, created by Calvin Fuller, Daryl Chapin, and Gerald Pearson, achieving 6% efficiency [15, 7, 16]
  • 1954 (May) – Texas Instruments announces the first commercial silicon transistor, developed by Gordon Teal’s team [14, 13]
  • 1954 – DuPont begins supplying high-purity “semiconductor-grade” silicon material [14]
  • 1954 – Siemens company patents the Siemens process for silicon purification, converting metallurgical-grade silicon to high-purity silicon [17]
  • 1955 – Carl Frosch and Lincoln Derick at Bell Labs accidentally discover that silicon dioxide can be grown on silicon surfaces [2, 18, 19]
  • 1957 – Frosch and Derick manufacture silicon dioxide field effect transistors, the first planar transistors with drain and source adjacent at the silicon surface [2, 18, 19]
  • 1957 – Mohamed M. Atalla develops the process of silicon surface passivation by thermal oxidation at Bell Laboratories [7]
  • 1958 – The first silicon solar cells are used on the Vanguard I satellite, demonstrating silicon’s use in space applications [7, 11]
  • 1959 (January) – Jean Hoerni at Fairchild Semiconductor develops the planar process for manufacturing silicon transistors with protective silicon dioxide layer [20, 21]
  • 1959 (July 30) – Robert Noyce at Fairchild Semiconductor files patent for the first practical monolithic integrated circuit using silicon as the substrate [22, 23]
  • 1959 – Mohamed Atalla and Dawon Kahng at Bell Labs propose a silicon MOS (metal-oxide-semiconductor) transistor [18, 24]
  • 1959 – Robert Noyce conceives of interconnecting multiple elements on a silicon chip without manual wiring [25, 26]
  • 1960 – Atalla and Kahng successfully demonstrate the first working silicon MOS transistor at Bell Labs [18, 24, 27]
  • 1960 (May 26) – Jay Last’s team at Fairchild produces the first planar silicon integrated circuit [23, 28]
  • 1960s – The float glass process is developed, producing high-quality flat sheets of glass from molten silica (silicon dioxide) [29]
  • 1961 – Fairchild introduces the first commercial silicon planar integrated circuits, called Micrologic [30]
  • 1962 – Fred Heiman and Steven Hofstein at RCA fabricate the first experimental silicon MOS IC with 16 transistors [23, 31]
  • 1963 – Chih-Tang Sah and Frank Wanlass at Fairchild Semiconductor invent silicon CMOS (complementary MOS) technology [18, 24]
  • 1964 – General Microelectronics introduces the first commercial silicon MOS integrated circuit, a 120-transistor shift register [23, 31]
  • 1967 – Robert Kerwin, Donald Klein and John Sarace at Bell Labs develop the self-aligned gate silicon MOS transistor [18, 24]
  • 1967 – Electroluminescence effect in silicon carbide leads to yellow SiC LEDs production in Soviet Union [32]
  • 1968 – Federico Faggin develops silicon-gate technology at Fairchild Semiconductor [33, 34]
  • 1970s – Silicon carbide is used for the first time in high-performance “ceramic” brake discs [32]
  • 1971 (January 11) – The term “Silicon Valley” first appears in print, referring to the Santa Clara Valley’s concentration of silicon semiconductor companies [35, 36, 37]
  • 1971 (November 15) – Intel releases the 4004, the world’s first commercial silicon microprocessor with 2,300 transistors [38, 39]
  • 1972 – Intel introduces the 8008, an 8-bit silicon microprocessor [34]
  • 1974 – CVD Incorporated achieves first industrial production of silicon carbide-coated graphite products [40]
  • 1975 – Silicon solar cell costs drop to just over $100 per watt from $300 per watt in 1956 [8]
  • 1980s – Blue silicon carbide LEDs are manufactured worldwide [32]
  • 1985 – Intel introduces the 32-bit 386 silicon microprocessor with 275,000 transistors [34]
  • 1990s – Polycrystalline silicon cells become dominant in the solar panel market [11]
  • 2000s – System LSI (large-scale integration) with multiple functions integrated in a single silicon chip enters full-scale production [41]
  • 2004-2008 – High silicon prices encourage manufacturers to make thinner silicon solar cells [11]
  • 2010 – Silicene, a two-dimensional allotrope of silicon analogous to graphene, is synthesized [2]
  • 2010 – Fluidized Bed Reactor technology for granular polysilicon production is commercialized [42]
  • 2013 – Billions of silicon MOS transistors are manufactured every day [27]
  • 2018 – An estimated 13 sextillion silicon MOSFETs have been manufactured between 1960 and 2018 [18, 27]
  • 2018 – Silicon solar cells achieve commercial efficiencies of 15 to 20 percent [16]
  • 2021 – Silicon dioxide glass (silica glass) is widely used in semiconductor manufacturing and optics [43]
  • 2022 – Wolfspeed opens a large silicon carbide production plant in upstate New York [4]
  • 2023 – Tesla Model 3 and subsequent models use silicon carbide MOSFETs in their inverters [4]
  • 2024 – Intel announces plans to use glass substrates (containing silicon dioxide) for advanced silicon chip packaging [44]

Final Thoughts

The history of silicon reveals how a single element can fundamentally reshape human civilization. From Berzelius’s first isolation of pure silicon in 1824 to today’s multi-billion transistor microprocessors, silicon has enabled technologies that were unimaginable just decades ago. The development of the planar process, the invention of the integrated circuit, and the continuous miniaturization described by Moore’s Law have created a technological revolution that continues to accelerate.

As we face new challenges in energy, computing, and materials science, silicon remains at the forefront of innovation, from advanced solar cells to quantum computing substrates. The story of silicon is far from complete – it continues to be written in research laboratories and fabrication facilities around the world, promising future breakthroughs that will further transform our relationship with technology and the material world.

Thanks for reading!

References

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[42] Discover Signature Silane®, SIEMENS Polysilicon, and more at REC Silicon – https://recsilicon.com/technology/

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[44] The Race To Glass Substrates – https://semiengineering.com/the-race-to-glass-substrates/