[tim333]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleg_Losev#Solid-state_electro...

has quite a bit on it checking out:

> He used these junctions to build solid-state versions of amplifiers, oscillators, and TRF and regenerative radio receivers, at frequencies up to 5 MHz, 25 years before the transistor. He even built a superheterodyne receiver.

That one calls them "negative resistance diodes" but I don't see how you can make a functional solid state amplifier and the like without it being a transistor.

Maybe Wikipedia needs some edits.

[pseudohadamard]

The USSR famously invented everything the west did but years or even decades earlier, only for some reason never commercialised any of it, to the point where it became a bit of a running joke like the Su-24 "validating" the design of the F-111 which preceded it by some years. So I'd take any claims like this with a bit of a grain of salt.