A tetrode transistor is any transistor having four active terminals.
Early tetrode transistors
[edit]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 transistor and alloy-junction transistor. Both offered much higher speed than earlier transistors.
- Point-contact transistor having two emitters. It became obsolete in the middle 1950s.
- Modified grown-junction transistor or alloy-junction transistor having two connections at opposite ends of the base.[1] It achieved its high speed by reducing the input to output capacitance. It became obsolete in the early 1960s with the development of the diffusion transistor.
Modern tetrode transistors
[edit]- Dual emitter transistor, used in two-input transistor-transistor logic gates
- Dual collector transistor, used in two-output integrated injection logic gates
- Diffused planar silicon bipolar junction transistor,[2] used in some integrated circuits. This transistor, apart from the three electrodes (emitter, base, and collector), has a fourth electrode or grid made of conducting material placed near the emitter-base junction from which it is insulated by a silica layer.
- Field-effect tetrode
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Wolf, Oswald; R. T. Kramer; J. Spiech; H. Shleuder (1966). Special Purpose Transistors: A Self-Instructional Programmed Manual. Prentice Hall. pp. 98–102.
- ^ U.S. patent 4,143,421 - Tetrode transistor memory logic cell, March 6, 1979. Filed September 6, 1977.
External links
[edit]- Some application aspects of the tetrode transistors PDF (point contact)
- The Tetrode Power Transistor PDF (alloy junction)
- TRANSISTOR MUSEUM Historic Transistor Photo Gallery WESTERN ELECTRIC 3N22 (grown junction)