Transistor: Introduction, importance and history

Introduction:

The name “Transistor” has come from the two words “Transfer” and “Resistance”. Which then were combined into “Trans-resistance” and after that it was contracted to name as “Transistor”. From its origin words “transfer of resistance”, its process comes. Which is that the current passes from the low resistance portion to the high resistance portion for amplification.

                                                       

Definition:  

“Transistor is a semiconductor device which is used to do the switching and amplifying of electronic signals.”

Means if you want to do switching in electric circuit like, to stop the flow of current at a point at particular condition then transistor is the best you got. Or if you want to amplify your input signal like if you want to increase the loudness of input voice then transistor can do this. These are the main uses of Transistor.

 History:

Before Transistor there was Vacuum tube which was the main or important component of electronic devices. But it was big in size have low efficiency, more heat up, high power consumption, required high voltages and current, and have complexity in circuits. Then there were ideas of Field effect transistor started to come in 1905. And then in 1947 John Bardeen and Walter Brattain and William Shockley (Group leader) invented the first complete transistor named as “point contact transistor”.  And then the first commercially available transistor came in 1960s.

Importance of Transistor:

Honestly! I will say in electric area the most useful thing we have now a days is transistor. Transistor is the building block of all the electric devices. We are getting now a days more smaller devices is just because of transistors as they have very small size. They are so small that we rarely found an individual transistor. They are found in integrated circuits in large numbers. An IC normally contain 20 to 60 transistors. The latest microprocessor contain almost 3 billion transistors and you can imagine the size of microprocessor. They are in our smart phones, smart watches, and radios and in every small smart device. The reason for their large use is their less cost and their requirements of low currents and voltages for operating.

Types of Transistor:

There two main types of Transistor,

1. BJT Transistor (Bi Polar Junction)
2. FETs Transistor(Field Effect Transistor)

BJT transistor are further classified to:

1. n-p-n
2. p-n-p

While FETs have also further classification.

The transistor tree below show classification of these Transistors.