Description

On June 30, 1948, AT&T Bell Labs unveiled the transitor to the world, creating a spark of explosive economic growth that would lead into the Information Age. William Shockley led a team of researchers, including Walter Brattain and John Bardeen, who invented the device. Like the existing triode vacuum tube device, the transistor could amplify signals and switch currents on and off, but the transistor was smaller, cheaper, and more efficient. Moreover, it could be integrated with millions of other transistors onto a single chip, creating the integrated circuit at the heart of modern computers.

Today, most transistors are being manufactured with a minimum feature size of 60-90nm--roughly 200-300 atoms. As the push continues to make devices even smaller, researchers must account for quantum mechanical effects in the device behavior. With fewer and fewer atoms, the positions of impurities and other irregularities begin to matter, and device reliability becomes an issue. So rather than shrink existing devices, many researchers are working on entirely new devices, based on carbon nanotubes, spintronics, molecular conduction, and other nanotechnologies.

Learn more about transistors from the many resources on this site, listed below. Use our simulation tools to simulate performance characteristics for your own devices.

Resources (121-140 of 334)

1. Illinois ECE 440 Solid State Electronic Devices, Lecture 34: MOS Field Effect Transistor (FET)

   02 Mar 2010 | | Contributor(s):: Eric Pop

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2. Illinois ECE 440 Solid State Electronic Devices, Lecture 35: Short Channel MOSFET and Non-Ideal Behavior

   02 Mar 2010 | | Contributor(s):: Eric Pop

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3. Illinois ECE 440 Solid State Electronic Devices, Lecture 36: MOSFET Scaling Limits

   02 Mar 2010 | | Contributor(s):: Eric Pop

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4. Illinois ECE 440 Solid State Electronic Devices, Lecture 37: MOSFET Analog Amplifier and Digital Inverter

   02 Mar 2010 | | Contributor(s):: Eric Pop

5. Illinois ECE 440 Solid State Electronic Devices, Lecture 32: MOS Threshold Voltage

   02 Mar 2010 | | Contributor(s):: Eric Pop

6. Illinois ECE 440 Solid State Electronic Devices, Lecture 31: MOS Capacitor

   02 Mar 2010 | | Contributor(s):: Eric Pop

7. Illinois ECE 440 Solid State Electronic Devices, Lecture 28&29: All Modes of BJT Operation

   02 Mar 2010 | | Contributor(s):: Eric Pop

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8. Illinois ABE 446: Biological Nanoengineering

   11 Feb 2010 | | Contributor(s):: Kaustubh Bhalerao

   Nanodevice design through organization of functional biological components; bio-molecular function and bioconjugation techniques in nanotechnology; modulation of biological systems using nanotechnology; issues related to applying biological nanotechnology in food energy, health, and the...

9. Lecture 10: Interface Damage & Negative Bias Temperature Instability

   02 Feb 2010 | | Contributor(s):: Muhammad A. Alam

   Outline:Background informationNBTI interpreted by R-D modelThe act of measurement and observed quantityNBTI vs. Light-induced DegradationPossibility of Degradation-free TransistorsConclusions

10. Illinois ECE 440: Introduction to Crystal Properties Homework

    28 Jan 2010 | | Contributor(s):: Mohamed Mohamed

    This homework Assignment covers basic introduction to Material Properties and Crystal Structures.

11. Illinois ECE 440: Charge Carrier in Bulk Semiconductors Homework

    28 Jan 2010 | | Contributor(s):: Mohamed Mohamed

    This homework covers the effects of doping on carrier concentration in bulk silicon.

12. Illinois ECE 440: Introduction to Carrier Drift and Mobility Homework

    28 Jan 2010 | | Contributor(s):: Mohamed Mohamed

    This homework covers Carrier Transport in Semiconductors subjected to an electric field.

13. Illinois ECE 440: Diffusion and Energy Band Diagram Homework

    28 Jan 2010 | | Contributor(s):: Mohamed Mohamed

    This homework covers Diffusion of Carriers, Built-in Fields and Metal semiconductor junctions.

14. Illinois ECE 440: MOS Capacitor Homework

    28 Jan 2010 | | Contributor(s):: Mohamed Mohamed

    This homework covers Threshold Voltage, MOS Band Diagram, and MOS Capacitance-Voltage Analysis.

15. Illinois ECE 440: MOS Field-Effect Transistor Homework

    28 Jan 2010 | | Contributor(s):: Mohamed Mohamed

    This homework covers Output Characteristics and Mobility Model of MOSFETs.

16. Illinois ECE 440: PN Junction Homework

    28 Jan 2010 | | Contributor(s):: Mohamed Mohamed

    This homework covers P-N junctions in equilibrium, contact potential, and Space Charge at a Junction.

17. Illinois ECE 440: Carrier Generation and Recombination and photo-conductivity Homework

    28 Jan 2010 | | Contributor(s):: Mohamed Mohamed

    This homework covers Optical Absorption, Excess Carrier Concentration, Steady State Carrier Generation, and Quasi-Fermi Levels.

18. Illinois ECE 440: Photodiodes Homework

    28 Jan 2010 | | Contributor(s):: Mohamed Mohamed

    This homework covers Current and Voltage in an Illuminated Junction, Solar Cells, and PN Junction Simulation.

19. Illinois ECE 440: Solid State Electronic Devices Homework Assignments (Fall 2009)

    28 Jan 2010 | | Contributor(s):: Mohamed Mohamed

    Homework assignments for the Fall 2009 teaching of Illinois ECE 440: Solid State Electronic Devices.

20. Nanoelectronic Modeling: From Quantum Mechanics and Atoms to Realistic Devices

    25 Jan 2010 | | Contributor(s):: Gerhard Klimeck

    The goal of this series of lectures is to explain the critical concepts in the understanding of the state-of-the-art modeling of nanoelectronic devices such as resonant tunneling diodes, quantum wells, quantum dots, nanowires, and ultra-scaled transistors. Three fundamental concepts critical to...