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Transistors

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Transistors

John Bardeen, William Shockley, and Walter Brattain, were all scientists at the Bell Telephone Laboratories in Murray Hill, New Jersey. They were researching the behavior of germanium crystals as semi-conductors in an attempt to replace vacuum tubes as mechanical relays in telecommunications. The vacuum tube, used to amplify music and voice, made long-distance calling practical, but the tubes consumed power, created heat and burned out rapidly, requiring high maintenance. This smaller more reliable transistor replaced the older vacuum tube. (Bellis)
Transistors are semi-conductor devices that are used to amplify and switch electronic signals and electrical power. Transistors are composed of a semiconductor material with at least three terminals for connection to an external circuit. Transistors are manufactured in different designs but all have at least the three leads, the base which is responsible for activating the transistor, a collector which is applied to the positive lead, and an emitter which is the negative lead. If amperage, voltage or current is applied to one pair of the transistors terminals it changes the current through the other terminal. (Ryan)
The bipolar transistor leads are connected to their own section of doped semi-conductors. Doping involves the addition of a small percentage of foreign atoms in the regular crystal lattice of silicon or germanium producing sometimes large changes in their electrical properties. This is how we produce n-type and p-type semiconductors. (Nave)
The transistor as a current amplifier can be looked at like a valve in operation. The small current in the base lead acts as a valve that controls the larger current from the collector to the emitter. A signal in a variation of base current is reproduced as a larger variation in the collector to emitter current amplifying the original signal. (Nave)
Transistors changed the electronic world and have had an immense impact on electronic and computer design. Transistors replaced the bulky and unreliable vacuum tubes so now our devices can do the same things using a lot less power and space.

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