Transistor

For other uses, see Transistor (disambiguation).

Size comparison of bipolar junction transistor packages, including (from left to right): SOT-23, TO-92, TO-126, and TO-3
Metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET), showing gate (G), body (B), source (S) and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an insulating layer (white).

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 1926, but it was not possible to construct a working device at that time.[3] 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.[4] The most widely used type of transistor is the metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET), the MOSFET was invented at Bell Labs between 1955 and 1960.[5][6][7][8][9][10] 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.

  1. ^ "Transistor". Britannica. Retrieved January 12, 2021.
  2. ^ "A History of the Invention of the Transistor and Where It Will Lead Us" (PDF). IEEE JOURNAL OF SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS Vol 32 No 12. December 1997.
  3. ^ "1926 – Field Effect Semiconductor Device Concepts Patented". Computer History Museum. Archived from the original on March 22, 2016. Retrieved March 25, 2016.
  4. ^ "The Nobel Prize in Physics 1956". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB. Archived from the original on December 16, 2014. Retrieved December 7, 2014.
  5. ^ Huff, Howard; Riordan, Michael (September 1, 2007). "Frosch and Derick: Fifty Years Later (Foreword)". The Electrochemical Society Interface. 16 (3): 29. doi:10.1149/2.F02073IF. ISSN 1064-8208.
  6. ^ Frosch, C. J.; Derick, L (1957). "Surface Protection and Selective Masking during Diffusion in Silicon". Journal of the Electrochemical Society. 104 (9): 547. doi:10.1149/1.2428650.
  7. ^ KAHNG, D. (1961). "Silicon-Silicon Dioxide Surface Device". Technical Memorandum of Bell Laboratories: 583–596. doi:10.1142/9789814503464_0076. ISBN 978-981-02-0209-5.
  8. ^ Lojek, Bo (2007). History of Semiconductor Engineering. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg. p. 321. ISBN 978-3-540-34258-8.
  9. ^ Ligenza, J.R.; Spitzer, W.G. (1960). "The mechanisms for silicon oxidation in steam and oxygen". Journal of Physics and Chemistry of Solids. 14: 131–136. doi:10.1016/0022-3697(60)90219-5.
  10. ^ Lojek, Bo (2007). History of Semiconductor Engineering. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 120. ISBN 9783540342588.