The Complete Semiconductor Transistor and Its Incomplete Forms

Abstract

This paper describes the definition of the complete transistor. For semiconductor devices, the complete transistor is always bipolar, namely, its electrical characteristics contain both electron and hole currents controlled by their spatial charge distributions. Partially complete or incomplete transistors, via coined names or/and designed physical geometries, included the 1949 Shockley p/n junction transistor (later called Bipolar Junction Transistor, BJT), the 1952 Shockley unipolar ‘field-effect’ transistor (FET, later called the p/n Junction Gate FET or JGFET), as well as the field-effect transistors introduced by later investigators. Similarities between the surface-channel MOS-gate FET (MOSFET) and the volume-channel BJT are illustrated. The bipolar currents, identified by us in a recent nanometer FET with 2-MOS-gates on thin and nearly pure silicon base, led us to the recognition of the physical makeup and electrical current and charge compositions of a complete transistor and its extension to other three or more terminal signal processing devices, and also the importance of the terminal contacts.