Indeed. I tried to make a transistor with the reverse side of a pile of 74LS IC dies I extracted with solvents, household chemicals and a blow torch. I managed to make an acceptable diode that lasted about 2 minutes at a mere 200uA of current. I gave up then and decided that the transistor was the base abstraction layer I could be bothered with.

For ref diode recipe:

1. 74LS die. Turn it over.

2. Small pile of borax on one half. Small pile of sulphur on other side.

3. Apply torch until everything is baked nicely.

4. Scrape off surface with a razor.

5. Poke two pins connected to your circuit until you find a bit that works like a diode (can take a few minutes). I used a simple home made curve tracer out of a twin-t oscillator, buffer and an oscilloscope. Don't hit it with much current or it'll kill it instantly.

Demo https://youtu.be/-Qph8BNrnLY

...and then she makes an inverter from two of them:

http://hackaday.com/2010/03/10/jeri-makes-integrated-circuit...