How the first transistor worked
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- Опубликовано: 6 дек 2010
- Bill uses a replica of the point contact transistor built by Walter Brattain and John Bardeen at Bell Labs. On December 23, 1947 they used this device to amplify the output of a microphone and thus started the microelectronics revolution that changed the world. He describes in detail why a transistor works by highlighting the uniqueness of semiconductors in being able to transfer charge by positive and negative carriers.
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This is the first time that I've seen a physical model of the first transistor. Interesting.
Khi
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David Scott nuh uh
All transistors are physical :)
You just need a lot of magnification to see the ones we use the most today!
Now we can fit 12 billion of those things in a modern GPU
Radvous How? My small mind boggles at the thought.
Ashley McCallum transistors nowadays are 500 times smaller than our red blood cells.
Not as small as my penis though
Zaraki 8
Science is great
Crazy when it's so small that it literally can only be made using tiny wavelength light waves.
Don't understand a single thing, but my god is this awesome to listen and watch
You are a fantastic educator. I took lots of physics as an undergrad and in graduate school.
I had many excellent prof's but you are really good.
If I had you maybe that C I got in 3Q physics (E&M) would have been an A.
I'm a subscriber now.
BTW, my father was a recent graduate of EE in the early 50's and worked for Shockley at Bell Labs. Same for my father in law, one the first employees at Fairchild in the 50's. This stuff is in my heritage.
that is awesome, be sure to pick their brains as much as you can :)
This is an unbelievably helpful video for visualizing the functionality of a transistor. As a biomedical engineering student, I can say that this topic is not often taught well. Thanks!
If you want proof we live a broken world, education is it. How many trillions do economies and companies lose because of unfulfilled human capital? How much potential innovation is lost every year because of bad teachers? Bad teachers destroy beautiful minds, minds that could have go on to invent and fix the world? We pay our teachers peanuts, allowing rotten ones tenure, and invest nothing in training-standardizing intuitive schools' curriculum.
I look back at the failure points in my career and they all point back to bad teachers. I am one of countless many.
This is just wonderful. I have a class test tomorrow and coming here helped me a lot, thanks!!
I'm trying to build one for an experiment and this was a huge help. Thank you!
Just discovered this channel. . . so long day.
I... I... Just finished a 6 hour stint?! How did my kids get so big? What year is this?!
Damn engineerguy... your videos are so fluid we didn't notice the passing of time?!
Hello the past, we are the future and it comming 2020
@@Nhatanh0475 Year of the pandemic
I've struggled for years to understand exactly how transistors work, and this is the first time that it seemed blindingly simple. Thank you so much!
It is a 'debt thief' :)
I have never looked at it that way until I saw this model though, but man, that is much easier to explain than how I was taught.
Amplification can seem strange in that you are putting in a small signal and getting a larger one out. It's almost like you are getting something for nothing. But note that the power output is actually produced by the bigger battery on the output side. All the transistor does is to increase or decrease the output current, which comes from the bigger battery, and how much it changes the output current is determined by the smaller input current.That's how amplification works.
Your explanation of the transistor is the very best one I've ever seen. Your understanding is magnificent. I think you should do your best to get this video out there as much as possible. I will share it as much as I can.
The voice of this man is so easy to listen to
The transistor changed the lives of billions of people DRAMATICALLY, yet this video only has 300k views.
Certain people do not understand English. Or know of this channel's existence.
The rest of idiots are following Kardhasians and the Royal family.
Billions of people are not scientific.
Well... at least we can say it has 600k views now
That was great! Thank you for taking time to share and make the video.
Thanks for spreading your understandings
I've watched a few different videos on transistors and one of my materials engineering classes went over semiconductors briefly, but I never completely and fundamentally understood how they work until I saw this video. Thank you so much and keep up the good work!
Technically the part about "positive charge carriers" a simplification. I'm sure you don't want to be burdened with a thirty-minute explanation of quantum mechanics.
Really cool stuff. Bell Labs changed the world more than a few times. It would have been so incredible to work their during their golden age.
Great video. I have never seen the transistor concept explained more clearly!
I hope I never meet someone who would dislike this video.
This video just explained to me in 4 minutes what i failed to grasp in my 4 years of engineering studies. Excellent explanation Sir!
This video has great production value and does well for what it does: introducing the history and physics of a transistor. But it really misses to give understanding on how they function.
In case you are interested, here's a basic explanation.
A semiconductor isn't a material halfway between an insulator and a conductor. If one wants to get picky about it, no material is an insulator under enough voltage and we ought to only talk in terms of a continuum (or gradient) of resistance in different materials. We call an insulator to a material with such high resistance we can disregard any current through it for a given voltage (usually 5 volts, nowadays).
What distinguishes a semiconductor is that its resistance varies depending on a physical phenomenon like light or heat. That non-fixed resistance what makes it special. Thus you can use it to increase or decrease the output voltage of a voltage divider (Google is your friend) without having a human turning knobs. By default, semiconducting materials are usually quite good conductors by themselves!
Now, we can make them out of 2 flavours using doping which make one semiconductor have a bias towards either rejecting or absorbing electrons. It so happens that having both flavours together will cause the diode effect where the boundary will have an ever growing resistance when reverse fed.
In transistors (the bipolar kind) there's a current entry terminal made of one flavour which bonds with an unlike flavour (for the base) and then an exit for the current. If the entry (collector) and base are reverse biased (as if a diode), then high resistance will build up. Otherwise, collector to emitter (the exit), through the base, resistance will be little and the transistor can conduct well.
Visual_Vexing
You have confused the emitter, which is *not* the output, with the collector, which is *not* the input.
The base to emitter circuit controls the current to the collector where it exits.
wow ! -- it is amazing to see that such a simple design revolutionized the human lives. This the best of the best channel on you tube. Thank you - Bill.
i love your vidoes man. its also cool you still read the comments on old videos!
I absolutely loved this video.
I have a physics test coming up and this cleared my concepts. Thank you so much Bill!
after over 20 years as a successful, working audio engineer, recording, live sound and theatre and corporate, and film work, i finally found someone who took the science out of the science and made it understandable to me
thank you, sir!
Great way to learn how a transistor works! If you never understood it this video shows it in a very simple and great way.
Thanks for the great video, I fully understand the concept. It' s really an amazing device.
Neat and simple, just enough to get the idea. Very good.
I'm an electrical engineer and you made this sound so simple! great job man! I wish you were around when my head was buried in text books.
Thanks for describing this, i've been wondering what the purpose of these transistors were. definitely helps my understanding towards them in my circuit analysis class.
Awesome explanation!
Perfect, I'm taking electrician courses at the moment and this is very helpful. Hope to see more about electricity and magnetism.
Your videos are the best, thank you!
This video was enlightening. Thank you :)
awesome explanation.... Thanks for the share
Amazing video
I remember watching this when it came out long ago, finally need to know this for physics, this is easily the best way to learn!
RUclips needs more videos like these.
Brilliant channel.
Grat video. Thanks!
Interesting video.
very informative video ! thank you
wow. awesome videos.
Really, @engineerguy, I enjoy your videos big time!!!
This is really well done, just like all your videos. Perhaps in a future video you can go into a bit more detail about the diode (around 2:06). I didn't quite get how the negative and positive charge carriers worked, or how the flow of electrons through them were any different than through a normal conductor. I did get that if the positive side of the diode points to positive power, then the current will flow. Many Thanks!!
This guy is good! Thanks!!!
Very interesting and accessible!
Bill, best description of this seminal device developed by Brattain and Bardeen.
I'm trying to put together a very detailed description of the development of this device, including the Physics, but I'm coming up short.
Questions:
1. Do you know if the Germanium slab (BASE) was intrinsic or was it prepared ? On some X-sections a P layer appears on top of an N layer ?
2. Were the top gold contacts, the so-called point contacts, ohmic ? It seems this is where the action takes place. Is this how the P region was developed using the gold contacts ? Of course gold does not readily oxidise so it's hard to understand if the B-C and B-E diodes were something like Schottky diodes.
3. Do you know what is the spacing between the C and E gold contacts ?
Comment:
As I understand Bill S was leading the effort, but was not convinced of the path Brattain and Bardeen were taking, so they didn't tell him much. He was pretty mad with them, when they got the glory for the invention. But he redeemed himself and got the last laugh with his invention of the junction transistor including a rigorous mathematical description of how the device actually worked.
You may not care for Bill S and some of his orthogonal ideas, but he does deserve a mention ;)
@JagdtygerII two-whisker detector diodes were probably just voltage-biased, but not amplifying. With two contacts, a diode's turn-on voltage could be canceled out by a separate power supply.
In the mid 1950s someone (Banbury/Gebbie/Hogarth) managed to make a galena point-contact transistor. They found that amplification appeared when the whiskers were positioned within 0.0004" of each other. They had to etch the tips into very sharp points to do this.
My favorite engineer
Please keep going, I want to hear the rest of the story of the transistor! Fet, mos, nmos, bjt, jfet!!
This video has been added to your Favorites. :)
Awesome! Subscribed!
Crazy how someone came up with that!!!!!
Super! Thank you.
By employing sensible terminology coherently transitioned from element to element, without resorting to dumbing-down, you've empowered your students to better understand the complex hitherto thought unapproachable. You embody the truest notion of being teacher.
I wonder just how many people truly understand just how much the transistor changed the world. When I was little transistors where just starting to take over. It was a cool time to be alive.
thank you!
As I understand it, electron flow is from negative to positive (although, "hole" or charge flow) is from positive to negative. Thank you Ben Franklin.
This is both the simplest and best description of how a transistor works that I have ever seen. Where were you when I was a first year student? :)
+Matt South I didnt get shit and I kinda know how transistors work from before, I was expecting to be fully clear after this.
And I even get how vaccum tubes work =(
I like your easy explanation about semiconductors. Would you like to make also a video about a solar cell?
I’m going to try and make this
I like your videos.
Thank for the video.
I still do not understand how can connecting the two diode together and making a small current flow from the forward biased diode to the reverse biased diode make a acurrent flow on the reverse biased diode?!
i dont understand a thing but i like watching it : D
What I'm curious about is HOW they came up with the hypothesis that such a contraption would even work.
It's oddly specific to dope a small area of germanium, and use a razor blade to make the slightest of gaps in a gold film point contact. So they certainly had a solid understanding of the materials before making a rig to test it.
A solid understanding of solid state physics? Yes, they absolutely had that. The transistor was an extension of previous work by this team and others. A leap, to be sure, but from a solid foundation nevertheless.
I am also wondering what they were trying to achieve with this. In retrospect, its obvious it works, but at the time.. were they just mucking around?
Not just mucking around, no. They were specifically trying to develop an amplifier. This was Bell Labs, remember: they had a huge interest in being able to amplify signals for long distance phone calls without the power expense of vacuum valves/tubes.
woah my comment is at the top :0 I finally need to really learn this, so glad I remembered watching this last year!
Also what can you tell me about the "Flame Tube" diodes and amplifiers>?
Another outstanding video. (but you forgot Dr Shockley)
+Cecil Broom Shockley was actually their supervisor. He contributed little to the experiment itself, but tried to take all the credit
+TheAwesomeVideoMan1 Well he deserves some credit...he did come up with the Junction transistor after all..
But Shockley DID want more credit than he deserved
He was conveniently, left out because Dr Shockely was out spoken on differences be the races. And I speculate in order to fit in with the university he works at he did this.
William Shockley lead the team, Brattain and Bardeen's work was primarily this particular point contact transistor, but Shockley literally wrote the book on diodes and pn junctions. and even as early as 1925 discovered the field effect. The point contact was really only a proof of concept, the BJT (Shockleys invention) was a much more successful design. Although Shockley ideas on races were quite racist, unscientific and flawed, its amazing that someone so talented in semiconductor physics, was so stupid to spend so much time on eugenics.
@ 2:50 How do you change the charge carrier type of Germanium?
every time i watch one of your videos i get so curious about the world and i wonder why no one is talking about this. where should i go to learn more?
Hi! I'm currently studying science in college and want to go into engineering (most likely mechanical) when i apply to university this semester. i was just wondering which engineering discipline would be most appropriate if i want to do into a role where ill be doing lots of prototyping and hands on work (like robotics R&D). I really think mechanical is what i'm interested in, but its so hard to just pin down what kind of engineer i want to be already!
wow i got bored after a while, thank god i watched it on youtube and not in class.
This looks exactly like the electrical diagram symbol for the transistor
Thanks
We JUST talked about this in my materials class! I knew exactly what was going on!
Now we can fit 12 billion of those things in a modern GPU
I got some parts of the video, but not exactly why it works. For example, why doesn't the right side give off a lesser current than the left side when the contact point is smaller? Is there less resistance on the right side?
I have read that many of the old radio operators of the WWI era and after, made something similar using their Galena "cats whisker" diodes with a second whisker. How possible is that to accomplish? I do know that the Galena semiconductor is very voltage sensitive, but would it work??
Mind.........Blown!
The Nuvistor, as far as I know, was the smallest vacuum tube ever mass produced and was done so by RCA. They were about the size of a thimble. Even still, you certainly wouldn't want to carry a pocket radio that utilized them. They used a steel envelope and got hotter than three yards of hell.
My OCD is forcing me to point out that I do believe the diagram of the working transistor has a couple minor errors. The emitter and collector voltage (Ve and Vc respectively) designators are reversed. (Time stamp ~3:55).
Don't get me wrong, I love the work Bill does. Including this and hope to see more of it.
He had another video; ruclips.net/video/xvrjIJw3OSU/видео.html
Same thing: I think the diagram is drawn as a common base amplifier but the input and output seem to be reversed. OK we are talking about a historical discovery here and maybe that was really how it was discovered? A reversed common base amplifier that brought light to the world. Dunno?
this is cool in all but is there a series for beginners into tech and sience i really like science and tech but i dont know were to start
As beautiful as a crystal radio.
I'd love to see both things in one project.
Haha! Both things in one…
@@Tadesan An amplifier maybe, for crystal radio.
Please do a video in PNP, NPN and other types of transisters .
More on semi conductors please, other devices and cases, then microwave tubes twt cfa klystron, cfa etc
I would like to see this one-dimensional device.. oh wait I guess I couldn't see it if there was one! Great video however, thanks and keep up the good work.
I like the subtle music in the background. You probably like Bodies (hit the floor) right? I think it's in Gmaj. His shrugs indicate a humble modesty, a good quality in an engineer. He moves his mouth a lot while he talks, does that bother you also? I understand they used to have a background picture, but they removed it at your suggestion.
I finally know gow to use them now. About damn time huh?
@engineerguyvideo thanks for responding i dont really have a specific topic just i have been very distacted in school im 14 so for me its hard to concentrate but im still looking forward to what you do :)
@engineerguyvideo where can i get this music?
yer awesome luke skywalker, thanks for this video
Where is the programming code in IC and how does it work?
Engineers: "one dimension please"
Mathematicians: "nine dimensions please"
So is this where the circuit symbol for diode came from?
@engineerguyvideo It is actually. In the related videos, Illinois1867 has it up.
Why wound't the current just flow through the very low resistance copper plate on the bottom directly from one battery to the other?
Well done, you made it a whle video without a cheesy joke
I'm only joking of course, I secretly love them :P
Sir I have a question - i understand how transistors work now, but how about processors in the computers. can u make a video explaining how they work? how computers brains work generally, can u make a simple case like you always do, so even a non electrical engineer can understand. I mean how this magnificent device (CPU) can process so much date and calculations?
@kioshi21 testing, testing and testing, that's how other things got invented, you start with an idea, experiment, get another idea and so on until you reach your goal and also get ideas for other stuff can come into play.
But the outcome is not always as expected, they could have invented something else if they have failed with the transistor.
@engineerguyvideo how is it that the current on the right is bigger? from the RHS batteries perspective, it is still reversed biased, no? that is, all of the current on the RHS comes from the batter on the LHS, so it should be less current based on my understanding. thanks
We miss you, Bill! Now that your book is done, will you be returning to RUclips?
Come back, I need to learn more engineering from you :(