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A transistor is a semiconductor device used to amplify or switch electronic signals and electrical power. It is composed of semiconductor material with at least three terminals for connection to an external circuit. A voltage or current applied to one pair of the transistor's terminals changes the current through another pair of terminals. Because the controlled (output) power can be higher than the controlling (input) power, a transistor can amplify a signal. Today, some transistors are packaged individually, but many more are found embedded in integrated circuits. The transistor is the fundamental building block of modern electronic devices, and is ubiquitous in modern electronic systems. Following its development in 1947 by American physicists John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley, the transistor revolutionized the field of electronics, and paved the way for smaller and cheaper radios, calculators, and computers, among other things. The transistor is on the list of IEEE milestones in electronics, and the inventors were jointly awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for their achievement. ==History== (詳細はthermionic triode, a vacuum tube invented in 1907, enabled amplified radio technology and long-distance telephony. The triode, however, was a fragile device that consumed a lot of power. Physicist Julius Edgar Lilienfeld filed a patent for a field-effect transistor (FET) in Canada in 1925, which was intended to be a solid-state replacement for the triode.〔Vardalas, John, (Twists and Turns in the Development of the Transistor ) ''IEEE-USA Today's Engineer'', May 2003.〕〔Lilienfeld, Julius Edgar, "Method and apparatus for controlling electric current" January 28, 1930 (filed in Canada 1925-10-22, in US 1926-10-08).〕 Lilienfeld also filed identical patents in the United States in 1926〔(【引用サイトリンク】publisher=United States Patent and Trademark Office )〕 and 1928.〔(【引用サイトリンク】publisher=United States Patent and Trademark Office )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】publisher=United States Patent and Trademark Office )〕 However, Lilienfeld did not publish any research articles about his devices nor did his patents cite any specific examples of a working prototype. Because the production of high-quality semiconductor materials was still decades away, Lilienfeld's solid-state amplifier ideas would not have found practical use in the 1920s and 1930s, even if such a device had been built.〔(【引用サイトリンク】publisher=Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. )〕 In 1934, German inventor Oskar Heil patented a similar device.〔(Heil, Oskar, "Improvements in or relating to electrical amplifiers and other control arrangements and devices" ), Patent No. GB439457, European Patent Office, filed in Great Britain 1934-03-02, published December 6, 1935 (originally filed in Germany 1934-03-02).〕 From November 17, 1947 to December 23, 1947, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain at AT&T's Bell Labs in the United States performed experiments and observed that when two gold point contacts were applied to a crystal of germanium, a signal was produced with the output power greater than the input.〔(【引用サイトリンク】publisher=American Physical Society )〕 Solid State Physics Group leader William Shockley saw the potential in this, and over the next few months worked to greatly expand the knowledge of semiconductors. The term ''transistor'' was coined by John R. Pierce as a contraction of the term ''transresistance''. According to Lillian Hoddeson and Vicki Daitch, authors of a biography of John Bardeen, Shockley had proposed that Bell Labs' first patent for a transistor should be based on the field-effect and that he be named as the inventor. Having unearthed Lilienfeld’s patents that went into obscurity years earlier, lawyers at Bell Labs advised against Shockley's proposal because the idea of a field-effect transistor that used an electric field as a "grid" was not new. Instead, what Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley invented in 1947 was the first point-contact transistor.〔 In acknowledgement of this accomplishment, Shockley, Bardeen, and Brattain were jointly awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics "for their researches on semiconductors and their discovery of the transistor effect." In 1948, the point-contact transistor was independently invented by German physicists Herbert Mataré and Heinrich Welker while working at the Compagnie des Freins et Signaux, a Westinghouse subsidiary located in Paris. Mataré had previous experience in developing crystal rectifiers from silicon and germanium in the German radar effort during World War II. Using this knowledge, he began researching the phenomenon of "interference" in 1947. By June 1948, witnessing currents flowing through point-contacts, Mataré produced consistent results using samples of germanium produced by Welker, similar to what Bardeen and Brattain had accomplished earlier in December 1947. Realizing that Bell Labs' scientists had already invented the transistor before them, the company rushed to get its "transistron" into production for amplified use in France's telephone network. The first high-frequency transistor was the surface-barrier germanium transistor developed by Philco in 1953, capable of operating up to . These were made by etching depressions into an N-type germanium base from both sides with jets of Indium(III) sulfate until it was a few ten-thousandths of an inch thick. Indium electroplated into the depressions formed the collector and emitter.〔Wall Street Journal, December 4, 1953, page 4, Article "Philco Claims Its Transistor Outperforms Others Now In Use"〕〔Electronics magazine, January 1954, Article "Electroplated Transistors Announced"〕 The first all-transistor car radio, which was produced in 1955 by Chrysler and Philco, used these transistors in its circuitry and also they were the first suitable for high-speed computers.〔Wall Street Journal, "Chrysler Promises Car Radio With Transistors Instead of Tubes in '56", April 28, 1955, page 1〕〔Los Angeles Times, May 8, 1955, page A20, Article: "Chrysler Announces New Transistor Radio"〕〔Philco TechRep Division Bulletin, May–June 1955, Volume 5 Number 3, page 28〕〔 Here: page 2〕 The first working silicon transistor was developed at Bell Labs on January 26, 1954 by Morris Tanenbaum. The first commercial silicon transistor was produced by Texas Instruments in 1954. This was the work of Gordon Teal, an expert in growing crystals of high purity, who had previously worked at Bell Labs. 〔IEEE Spectrum, The Lost History of the Transistor, Author: Michael Riordan, May 2004, pp 48-49 | url=http://spectrum.ieee.org/biomedical/devices/the-lost-history-of-the-transistor〕〔J. Chelikowski, "Introduction: Silicon in all its Forms", ''Silicon: evolution and future of a technology'' (Editors: P. Siffert, E. F. Krimmel), p.1, Springer, 2004 ISBN 3-540-40546-1.〕〔Grant McFarland, ''Microprocessor design: a practical guide from design planning to manufacturing'', p.10, McGraw-Hill Professional, 2006 ISBN 0-07-145951-0.〕 The first MOS transistor actually built was by Kahng and Atalla at Bell Labs in 1960.〔W. Heywang, K. H. Zaininger, "Silicon: The Semiconductor Material", ''Silicon: evolution and future of a technology'' (Editors: P. Siffert, E. F. Krimmel), p.36, Springer, 2004 ISBN 3-540-40546-1.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Transistor」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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