The birthplace of the transistor The birthplace of the transistor is silicon valley, California. The first practical transistor was developed by William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Houser Brattain in 1947. The Silicon Valley Region is a part of Stanford University. At the end of the second war Stanford University did not have enough money to fund its expansion plans, but there are lots of land which can’t be sold . So Frederick Turman, one of the senior administrators, found a solution. Instead of selling the land ,they could lease it for 99 years. The land is leased only to high technology companies that could benefit Stanford University. Now there are many companies in Silicon Valley, for example the Apple, Google, HP, Intel, eBay and Yahoo!. The first digital computer of the world which was called ENIAC was introduced in Silicon Valley and in 1971,the first microprocessor ,the Intel 4004 chip was developed here ,too.