Grown-junction NPN transistor type ST2010

The grown-junction transistor was the first type of bipolar ''junction'' transistor made. It was invented by

William Shockley William Bradford Shockley Jr. (February 13, 1910 – August 12, 1989) was an American physicist and inventor. He was the manager of a research group at Bell Labs that included John Bardeen and Walter Brattain. The three scientists were jointly ...

Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mult ...

on June 23, 1948 (patent filed June 26, 1948), six months after the first bipolar

point-contact transistor The point-contact transistor was the first type of transistor to be successfully demonstrated. It was developed by research scientists John Bardeen and Walter Brattain at Bell Laboratories in December 1947. They worked in a group led by physicis ...

. The first

germanium Germanium is a chemical element with the symbol Ge and atomic number 32. It is lustrous, hard-brittle, grayish-white and similar in appearance to silicon. It is a metalloid in the carbon group that is chemically similar to its group neighbors s ...

prototypes were made in 1949. Bell Labs announced Shockley’s grown-junction transistor on July 4, 1951. An NPN grown-junction transistor is made of a single

crystal A crystal or crystalline solid is a solid material whose constituents (such as atoms, molecules, or ions) are arranged in a highly ordered microscopic structure, forming a crystal lattice that extends in all directions. In addition, macros ...

semiconductor A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical resistivity and conductivity, electrical conductivity value falling between that of a electrical conductor, conductor, such as copper, and an insulator (electricity), insulator, such as glas ...

material which has two

PN junction PN may refer to: Arts and entertainment * '' Purple Noon'', a 1960 film * Patriotic Nigras, a griefing group in the game ''Second Life'' Business and economics * Pacific National, a rail freight company in Australia * Participatory notes, i ...

s grown into it. During the growth process, a seed crystal is slowly pulled from a bath of molten semiconductor, which then grows into a rod-shaped crystal ( boule). The molten semiconductor is doped N-type at the start. At a predetermined moment in the growth process a small pellet of a P-type

dopant A dopant, also called a doping agent, is a trace of impurity element that is introduced into a chemical material to alter its original electrical or optical properties. The amount of dopant necessary to cause changes is typically very low. When ...

is added, almost immediately followed by a somewhat larger pellet of an N-type dopant. These dopants dissolve in the molten semiconductor changing the type of semiconductor subsequently grown. The resulting crystal has a thin layer of P-type material sandwiched between sections of N-type material. This P-type layer may be as little as a thousandth of an inch (25 μm) thick. The crystal is sliced, leaving the thin P-type layer in the center of the slice, then cut into bars. Each bar is made into a transistor by

soldering Soldering (; ) is a process in which two or more items are joined by melting and putting a filler metal (solder) into the joint, the filler metal having a lower melting point than the adjoining metal. Unlike welding, soldering does not involv ...

its N-type ends to supporting and conducting leads, then

welding Welding is a fabrication (metal), fabrication process that joins materials, usually metals or thermoplastics, by using high heat to melt the parts together and allowing them to cool, causing Fusion welding, fusion. Welding is distinct from lower ...

a very fine

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile met ...

lead to the central P-type layer, and finally encasing in a hermetically sealed can. A similar process, using the opposite dopants, makes a PNP grown-junction transistor. The most difficult part of this process is welding the gold wire to the base layer, as the wire may have a larger diameter than the thickness of the base. To facilitate this operation, the gold wire is pointed or flattened until the end is thinner than the base layer. The tip of the gold wire is slid along the bar until electrical resistance measurement shows it is in contact with the base layer. At this time a pulse of current is applied, welding the wire in place. Unfortunately sometimes the weld is too large or slightly off center in the base layer. To avoid shorting the transistor, the gold wire is alloyed with a small amount of the same type dopant as used in the base. This causes the base layer to become slightly thicker at the point of the weld. Grown-junction transistors rarely operated at frequencies above the audio range, due to their relatively thick base layers. Growing thin base layers was very hard to control and welding the wire to the base became harder the thinner it got. Higher-frequency operation could be obtained by welding a second wire on the opposite side of the base, making a

tetrode transistor A tetrode transistor is any transistor having four active terminals. Early tetrode transistors There were two types of tetrode transistor developed in the early 1950s as an improvement over the point-contact transistor and the later grown-junction ...

, and using special biasing on this second base connection.

References

External links

A History of the Invention of the Transistor and Where It Will Lead Us
(PDF) Figure 4 shows first grown junction transistor. {{DEFAULTSORT:Grown-Junction Transistor Transistor types

See also

References

External links