
These are fed into a transistor thatīoosts them and powers a tiny loudspeaker, That picks up sounds from the world around you and turns them intoįluctuating electric currents. A hearing aid has a tiny microphone in it Really useful in things like hearing aids, one of the first things In other words, it's a kind of current booster. Input current) and produces a much bigger electric current (an outputĬurrent) at the other.

In a tiny electric current at one end (an It can work either as an amplifier or a switch: A transistor is a miniature electronic component thatĬan do two different jobs. How do transistors work in calculators and computers?Ī transistor is really simple-and really complex.How a field-effect transistor (FET) works.I'll explain what all that stuff means in a moment.) (Technically, if you're interested in the more geeky bits, this is a 5401B silicon PNP amplifier transistor. Although simple circuits contain individual transistors like this, complex circuits inside computers also contain microchips, each of which might have thousands, millions, or hundreds of millions of transistors packed inside.

Photo: An insect with three legs? No, a typical transistor on an electronic circuit board. Invented over half a century ago by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and Transistors have revolutionized electronics since they were first They're made from silicon, a chemical element commonly found in sand. Your brain contains around 100 billion cells called neurons-the tiny switches that let you think and remember things.
