Transistors: Wikipedia claims “the MOSFET was also initially slower and less reliable than the BJT”, and further discussion seems to suggest that its benefits were captured with further work and effort (e.g. it was a twentieth the size of a BJT by the 1990s, decades after invention). This sounds like it wasn’t a discontinuity to me.
I am also skeptical that the MOSFET produced a discontinuity. Plausibly, what we care about is the number of computations we can do per dollar. Nordhaus (2007) provides data showing that that the rate of progress on this metric was practically unchanged at the time the MOSFET was invented, in 1959.
I am also skeptical that the MOSFET produced a discontinuity. Plausibly, what we care about is the number of computations we can do per dollar. Nordhaus (2007) provides data showing that that the rate of progress on this metric was practically unchanged at the time the MOSFET was invented, in 1959.