Semiconductors & transistors: Now, on the 21th century almost everything is being computerized. And there are some small pieces that keep everything from falling apart. These components are semiconductors and they have an important role in all kind of electronic circuits that have a large usage like consumer electronics, telecommunications equipment, home appliances, and also automobiles and they are known as the pulse of the microprocessor chips or transistors. And that’s not all, because in the past few years semiconductors found a lot more uses in the process of making different new products.

When a semiconductor was first created, its goal was to replace the vacuum tubes used in the past for televisions and radios. This way, the electronic devices went smaller and smaller with a more complex structure. Semiconductors are made of germanium or silicon and they can be doped with other impurities to change their characteristics. The term semiconductor is used to describe a solid material that cannot be considered neither a conductor nor an insulator. In fact, at high temperatures, a semiconductor acts more like it is a metal and it is very conductive and instead, at low temperatures, a semiconductor acts more like an insulator, so that at a normal temperature, its particularities come in the middle.

Transistors are the most important type of electronic devices, because they have the possibility of amplifying the electric signals. They can also be used as switches. A transistor is a semiconductor device and it is made from germanium and silicon, too. It was invented in Bell Laboratories by three physicists that got the Nobel prize for physics in 1956 and it is considered one of the best inventions of the 20th century. Nowadays, transistors are being used for all kinds of devices, such as electronic equipments, signal amplifiers (in the video, audio, radio area), amplifiers for instruments, oscillator , modulators and demodulators, filters or integrated circuits (today’s technology gives the opportunity of integrating millions of transistors in just one capsule.

Transistors have become irreplaceable these days and beside their importance in the modern technology, they are flexible and reliable so that now most of the electronic devices depend on them. Also, as the semiconductors, the role of transistors was initially to replace the vacuum tubes, the main components of that period’s electronic equipment. And because their costs are very low, one started the usage of transistors, the price of computers and other electronic products dropped.