What is a Transistor | How does It Work

A transistor is a semiconductor device used to amplify or switch electronic signals and electrical power. It is used as an amplifier and switch. Transistors are one of the basic things of modern electronics. It is composed of semiconductor material that uses at least three terminals for connection to an external circuit.

A transistor works when the electrons and the holes start to move in the two junctions between the n-type and p-type silicon. It is like a silicon sandwich. By turning a tiny input current into a large output current the transistor works as an amplifier. But it also acts as a switch at the same time. A transistor is a semiconductor device for amplifying, controlling, and generating electric signals. Transistors are active components of circuits or microchips that often contain billions of minuscule devices etched into them.

A transistor is really simple and at the same time really complex. When it works as an amplifier it takes a small amount of electric current at one end and produces a bigger electric current at the other end. In other words, it's a kind of current booster. It comes in really useful in things like hearing aids one of the first things people used transistors for. Hearing aids have a small microphone that in them picks up sounds from the outside world. Transistors can also work as switches. A tiny electric current flowing through another part of a transistor can make a much bigger current flow through another part of it.

Transistors are classified into two types.

1.Bipolar Junction Transistors

A bipolar junction transistor is a type of transistor that uses two types of charge carriers. These are electrons and electron-hole. A unipolar transistor, like a field-effect transistor, uses only one kind of charge carrier.

2. Field Effect Transistors

The field-effect transistor is a type of transistor that uses an electric field to control the flow of current. FETs are devices with three terminals: source, gate, and drain. These three terminals are used to control current flow.

We can put transistor switches together to make something to make a logic gate that compares several inputs and gives a different output as a result. Logic gates help computers make very simple decisions using boolean algebra. Our brain makes a decision the same way.

To know more: What does a transistor do?

Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor_(disambiguation)