Transistor
part · 1947 · Digital age
A semiconductor device for amplifying and switching signals.
Developer: Bell Labs.
Principles and materials it uses
- Semiconductor — is made of. A transistor works thanks to the properties of a semiconductor.
- P–n junction — uses. A bipolar transistor has two junctions.
Where it is used
- Pixel matrix (OLED) — is part of. Each pixel is driven by thin-film transistors.
- Flash memory — is part of. Each cell is a floating-gate transistor.
- Integrated circuit — is part of. A chip contains from dozens to billions of transistors.
- Inverter — is part of. Switches built on power transistors.
- Amplifier — is part of. Transistor amplifiers.
- Logic gate — is part of. Gates are built from transistors.
- Minicomputer — is part of. Transistor logic.
- RAM — is part of. And a transistor.
- Liquid-crystal display — is part of. Thin-film transistors.
- Transistor radio — is part of. Transistors instead of vacuum tubes.
- Induction hob — is part of. A high-frequency inverter.
- Pacemaker — is part of. The first pacemakers used transistors.
- ROM — is part of. Cells.
- Analog-to-digital converter — is part of. It is built from transistors.
- Hi-fi amplifier — is part of. Amplification comes from transistors or tubes.
- Cache memory — is part of. Cache cells are transistors.
- Microcontroller — is part of. The processor and memory are transistors on one chip.
- Graphics processing unit — is part of. Billions of transistors.
- MicroLED — is part of. The pixels are driven by transistors.
- Tensor processing unit — is part of. An array of multipliers built from transistors.
History: what it evolved from and what it influenced
- Vacuum tube — evolved from. The transistor replaced the vacuum tube as an amplifier and switch.
What it is a kind of
- MOSFET — includes. A field-effect transistor.
- IGBT — includes. A power transistor.
- Bipolar transistor — includes. A transistor.
- Point-contact transistor — includes. The first transistor.