Semiconductor

devices

By Misho,Yavor and
Constantin 10E
 What is semiconductor
device?
Semiconductor
device is
an electronic
component that
exploits
the electronic
properties
of semiconductor
material,
principally silicon, ger
manium, and gallium
arsenide, as well Semiconductor devices have
as organic replaced vacuum tubes in most
semiconductors. applications. They use electrical
conduction in the solid state rather than
the gaseous state or thermionic emission in
a vacuum.
Types of semicondutcor devices
 Transistors
• A transistor is a semiconductor device used
to amplify or switch electronic signals and electrical
power. It is composed of semiconductor
material usually with at least three terminals for
connection to an external circuit.

•Bipolar Junction Transistors

( BJT ) are transistors which are
built up of 3 regions, the base,
the collector, and the emitter.
Bipolar Junction transistors are
current-controlled devices.
•There are two types of standart (bipolar junction)
transistors, NPN and PNP.
 How transistors
work
•NPN

The transistor works because of something called

a semiconducting material. A current flowing from the base
to the emitter “opens” the flow of current from the collector
to the emitter.

When you apply 0.7V from base to emitter you will turn the
transistor ON and allow a current to flow from collector to
emitter.
•PNP

A PNP transistor will “turn on” when you have a

small current running from emitter to base of
the transistor.

By setting the base voltage of a PNP transistor to 0.7V lower than

the emitter, you “turn the transistor on” and allow for current to
flow from emitter to collector.
 •Field Effect Transistor (FET)

Field Effect Transistors are made up of 3

regions, a gate, a source, and a drain. FETs
are voltage-controlled devices.

Field Effect transistors have a very high input

impedance, from several mega ohms (MΩ) of
resistance to much, much larger values. This
high input impedance causes them to have
very little current run through them.
INTEGRATED CIRCUIT

Integrated circuit (IC), also

called microelectronic circuit,
microchip, or chip, an assembly
of electronic components,
fabricated as a single unit, in
which miniaturized active
devices (e.g., transistors and
diodes) and passive devices
(e.g., capacitors and resistors)
and their interconnections are
built up on a thin substrate of
semiconductor material
(typically silicon).
The resulting circuit is thus a small monolithic
“chip,” which may be as small as a few
square centimetres or only a few square
millimetres. The individual circuit components
are generally microscopic in size.
How were the integrated
circuits created
Integrated circuits have their
origin in the invention of the
transistor in 1947 by William B.
Shockley and his team.
The study of methods of creating
electronic devices using solid materials
became known as solid-state
electronics. Solid-state devices proved
to be much sturdier, easier to work
with, more reliable, much smaller, and
less expensive than vacuum tubes.
Using the same principles and
materials, engineers soon learned to
create other electrical components,
such as resistors and capacitors. Now
that electrical devices could be made
so small, the largest part of a circuit
was the awkward wiring between the
devices.
In 1958 Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce
independently thought of a way to
reduce circuit size further. They laid
very thin paths of metal (usually
aluminum or copper) directly on the
same piece of material as their
devices. These small paths acted as
wires. With this technique an entire
circuit could be “integrated” on a
single piece of solid material and an
integrated circuit (IC) thus created. ICs
can contain hundreds of thousands of
individual transistors on a single piece
of material the size of a pea. Working
with that many vacuum tubes would
have been unrealistically awkward and
expensive. The invention of the
integrated circuit made technologies
of the Information Age feasible. ICs are
now used extensively in all fields of life,
from cars to toasters to amusement
park rides.