Transistor Basics

A transistor is a semiconductor device which is used to switch or amplify electronic signals and
electric power. It consists of semiconductor material mostly with at least three terminals for
connection to an external circuit.

Transistor working principle

Transistors are made up of three parts namely a base, a collector and an emitter. The base
serves as a gate controller device for larger electric supply. The collector is larger electrical
supply and outlet of that supply is the emitter. The current flowing through the gate from the
collector can be regulated by sending varying levels of current from the base. In this manner, a
very small amount of current can be used to control a large amount of current like in amplifiers.
Transistor works as a switch or as an amplifier.

Amplifier
When it works as an amplifier, it serves as an energy booster. It comes in useful things like
hearing aids, which is one of the prior gadgets people use for transistor. Hearing aids consist of
tiny microphone that picks up sounds for your world and converts them into varying electric
currents. Microphones are also fed into a transistor that boosts a tiny loudspeaker, and you hear
much louder version of sound around you.

Switch
Transistors also work as switches. A small electric current flowing through one part of a transistor
can make much larger current flow through the other part. This is how all computer chips work.
For instance, a memory chip includes hundreds of transistors, each of which can be switched on
or off individually. Since every transistor can be in two separate states, it can store two numbers
zero and one separately. A chip can store billions of zeros and ones with billions of transistors
and as many letters and numbers.

Application of Transistor
Semi-conducting materials make the working of transistor possible. Most of you must be familiar
with electrically conductive and nonconductive materials. Metals are typically considered to be
conductive. Things like plastics, wood, ceramics and glass are insulators, or non-conductive. A
team of scientists discovered how to test certain types of crystals and utilize them as electronic
control devices by exploiting their semi-conductive properties.
Heat-operated switch
A thermistor is one of the most important components in the circuit of heat-operated switch. It is a
kind of resistor that responds to the surrounding temperature. Its resistance decreases when the
temperature is high and vice versa.
The thermistor resistance drops and a higher share of supply voltage is dropped across R when
heat is applied to the thermistor. The base current rises followed by an increase in collector
current. As a result, the bulb glows and siren sounds.
These particular circuits are mainly used in fire alarm system.
Integrated Circuits
Integrated circuits consist of resistors, transistors, diodes and capacitors combined with a silicon
wafer-thin chip, known as microchip. Integrated circuits consume a less electrical energy,
occupies a small space that reduces the circuit’s size and can be built at low cost.