Silicon transistor

The start of the solid-state electronic industry is generally recognized as 1947 when Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley of Bell Telephone Laboratories demonstrated the transistor function with alloyed germanium. The first silicon transistor was introduced in 1954 by Texas Instruments and, in 1956, Bell Laboratories produced the first diffused junction obtained by doping. The first-solid state transistor diodes and resistors had a single electrical function and were (and still are) known as discrete devices. 

Zhu, Z.-T. Menard, E. Nuzzo, R. G. Rogers, J. A. 2005. Spin on dopants for high-performance single-crystal silicon transistors on flexible plastic substrates. Appl. Phys. Lett. 86 133507. 

A small amount of boron is added as a dope to silicon transistor chips to facilitate or impede the flow of current over the chip. Boron has just three valence electrons sihcon atoms have four. This dearth of one electron in boron s outer shell allows it to act as a positive hole in the silicon chip that can be filled or left vacant, thus acting as a type of switch in transistors. Many of today s electronic devices depend on these types of doped-sihcon semiconductors and transistors. 

The increase has, however, not been in direct proportion to the increase in the number of semiconductor devices produced, because manufacturing yields have increased dramatically since the silicon transistor became commercially available in 1954 (see Electronic materials SEMICONDUCTORS, silicon-based). 

Gallium arsenide and silicon transistors each have their own specific advantages. ClaAs transistors switch faster than Si transistors and they also emit near-infrared and visible light, a property of value when both optical and electrical functions are combined in one chip. In many other respects, the GaAs devices are inferior to their silicon counterparts. Researchers have recently found how to effect epitaxial growth of crystalline GaAs layers... 

IBM claims world s smallest silicon transistor, Electronic News, 9 December, 2002. 

Gleskova, H. Wagner, S. and Suo, Z. (1999) Failure resistance of amorphous silicon transistors under extreme in-plane strain. Appl. Phys. Lett., 75, 3011-3013. 

We next present the BTE and MD predictions of thermal conductivities of silicon thin films. The thermal properties of silicon thin films are of paramount importance to the transistor industry. Silicon-on-insulator (SOI) and strained silicon transistors are composed of silicon thin films. In both cases, the thin silicon film is deposited on top of poor thermally conducting materials, and the thermal energy generated by the Joule effect has to be removed along the silicon film plane. A thorough understanding of the thermal properties of thin silicon films is essential for the accurate prediction of the thermal response of these transistors. The dimensions of the silicon thin film in... 

SOI and strained silicon transistors are comparable to or smaller than the phonon s mean free path (which, for silicon, has been estimated as 300 nm at 300K) [53], In this limit, the film surfaces alter the phonon dispersion relations [76], and the phonon-surface scattering may become the predominant scattering mechanism [3, 53], Since phonons are the main carriers of thermal energy in silicon, these effects alter the thermal conductivity, which differs from that of bulk silicon [10, 36, 77], Measurements of the thermal conductivities of silicon films of thicknesses down to 74 nm found a reduction of 50% with respect to the bulk value at 300K [53], This reduction depends on the temperature and the thickness of the film [3, 53],... 

Cross-sectional view of a three-dimensional map of dopant atoms (light blue spheres) implanted into a typical silicon transistor structure. Red dots represent the silicon atoms (only 2% are shown for clarity) and the gray spheres represent a native silicon dioxide layer located at the interface between the crystalline silicon substrate and layer of deposited polycrystalline silicon. 

Jones, B. L. (1985). The Effect of Mechanical Stress on Amorphous Silicon Transistors, /. Non-Cryst. Solids, Vol. T7 78,1405-1408, ISSN 0022-3093... 

Tabel 2. Comparison between fabricated nanotube and silicon transistors. 

The device characteristic in saturation does not exhibit a perfect current source characteristic as Vos is increased the current generally continues to increase with some rate. In silicon transistors this is to first order a manifestation of channel length modulation. While channel length modulation is theoretically possible in OFETs with a small L, parasitic parallel conduction paths are the primary contribute to the output resistance of OFETs in saturation. 

L. Esaki, New phenomenon in narrow germanium p n junctions, Phys. Rev. 109, 603 (1958). J.A. Hoemi, Planar silicon transistors and diodes, presented at IRE Int. Electron Devices Meeting, Washington, DC (1960). 

J.A. Hoemi, Planar silicon transistors and diodes, IRE Int. Electron Devices Meet., Washington, DC (1960). 

Silicon transistor sensors with organic coating and an Ag/AgCl reference electrode have also been found to be successful in predicting sensory properties and flavour... 

Carbon nanotubes are longer than 1 nm, while off-the-shelf silicon transistors are up to 1 pm long. Because of their electrical properties, ropes of single shell carbon nanotubes may become a commercial single molecule transistor [64], both on the basis of performance and dimensions. When dissimilar nanotube molecules are joined end-to-end, the junction between them may function as a diode, commonly used to convert alternating current into direct current. Different junction types result by inserting defects into such junctions [70] [73]. 

An alternative approach to the manufacture of plastic transistors has been adopted in the US by Lucent Technologies who claim to have established a method of stamping out units ranging from 150 nm to 250 nm long, these are said to be about twice the size of conventional commercial silicon transistors. 

A group of Shockley s co-workers left Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in 1958 to set up Fairchild Semiconductors, because Shockley would not allow work to continue on the silicon transistor. The group included Robert Noyce (1927-1990) and Gordon Moore (b.l929). 

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