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Transistor

A transistor is a semiconductor device that amplifies or switches electrical signals and is fundamental to modern electronics, featuring at least three terminals. The first working transistor was invented in 1947, leading to the development of various types, including the widely used MOSFET. Transistors have revolutionized electronics, enabling the creation of smaller and more efficient devices compared to vacuum tubes.

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0 views2 pages

Transistor

A transistor is a semiconductor device that amplifies or switches electrical signals and is fundamental to modern electronics, featuring at least three terminals. The first working transistor was invented in 1947, leading to the development of various types, including the widely used MOSFET. Transistors have revolutionized electronics, enabling the creation of smaller and more efficient devices compared to vacuum tubes.

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A transistor is a semiconductor device used to amplify or switch electrical

signals and power. It is one of the basic building blocks of modern electronics.
[1] It is composed of semiconductor material, usually with at least
three terminals for connection to an electronic circuit.
A voltage or current applied to one pair of the transistor's terminals controls
the current through another pair of terminals. Because the controlled (output)
power can be higher than the controlling (input) power, a transistor can amplify
a signal. Some transistors are packaged individually, but many more in
miniature form are found embedded in integrated circuits. Because transistors
are the key active components in practically all modern electronics, many
people consider them one of the 20th century's greatest inventions. [2]
Physicist Julius Edgar Lilienfeld proposed the concept of a field-effect
transistor (FET) in 1925,[3] but it was not possible to construct a working device
at that time.[4] The first working device was a point-contact transistor invented
in 1947 by physicists John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William
Shockley at Bell Labs who shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for their
achievement.[5] The most widely used type of transistor, the metal–oxide–
semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET), was invented at Bell Labs
between 1955 and 1960.[6][7][8][9][10][11] Transistors revolutionized the field of
electronics and paved the way for smaller and
cheaper radios, calculators, computers, and other electronic devices.
Most transistors are made from very pure silicon, and some from germanium,
but certain other semiconductor materials are sometimes used. A transistor
may have only one kind of charge carrier in a field-effect transistor, or may
have two kinds of charge carriers in bipolar junction transistor devices.
Compared with the vacuum tube, transistors are generally smaller and require
less power to operate. Certain vacuum tubes have advantages over transistors
at very high operating frequencies or high operating voltages, such
as traveling-wave tubes and gyrotrons. Many types of transistors are made to
standardized specifications by multiple manufacturers.

History
Main article: History of the transistor
Julius Edgar Lilienfeld proposed the concept of a field-effect
transistor in 1925.
The thermionic triode, a vacuum tube invented in 1907, enabled
amplified radio technology and long-distance telephony. The triode, however,
was a fragile device that consumed a substantial amount of power. In
1909, physicist William Eccles discovered the crystal diode oscillator.
[12] Physicist Julius Edgar Lilienfeld filed a patent for a field-effect
transistor (FET) in Canada in 1925,[13] intended as a solid-state replacement for
the triode.[14][15] He filed identical patents in the United States in 1926 [16] and
1928.[17][18] However, he did not publish any research articles about his
devices nor did his patents cite any specific examples of a working prototype.
Because the production of high-quality semiconductor materials was still
decades away, Lilienfeld's solid-state amplifier ideas would not have found
practical use in the 1920s and 1930s, even if such a device had been built.
[19] In 1934, inventor Oskar Heil patented a similar device in Europe. [20]

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