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Transistor

Definition: Transistor

Transistor

Noun

1. A semiconductor device capable of amplification.

Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
 

Date "transistor" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1985. (references)

 

Specialty Definition: Transistor

DomainDefinition

Computing

Transistor A three terminal semiconductor amplifying device, the fundamental component of most active electronic circuits, including digital electronics. The transistor was invented on 1947-12-23 at Bell Labs. There are two kinds, the bipolar transistor (also called the junction transistor), and the field effect transistor (FET). Transistors and other components are interconnected to make complex integrated circuits such as logic gates, microprocessors and memory. (1995-10-05). Source: The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing.

Aerospace

An active semiconductor device with three or more electrodes. (references)

Mining

A device for controlling or amplifying electric currents by means of potential probes through a crystal of a semiconductor, commonly silicon orgermanium. (references)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Specialty Definition: Transistor

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The transistor is a solid-state semiconductor device used for amplification and switching, and has three terminals: a small current or voltage applied to one terminal controls the current through the other two. It is the key component in all modern electronics. In digital circuits, transistors are used as very fast electrical switches, and arrangements of transistors can function as logic gates, RAM-type memory and other devices. In analog circuits, transistors are essentially used as amplifiers.

Transistor was also the common name in the sixties for a transistor radio, a pocket-sized portable radio that utilized transistors (rather than vacuum tubes) as its active electronics. This is still one of the dictionary definitions of transistor.

Invention

The transistor was invented at Bell Laboratories in December 1947 by John Bardeen, Walter Houser Brattain, and William Bradford Shockley, who were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 1956. Ironically, they had set out to manufacture a field-effect transistor (FET) predicted by Julius Edgar Lilienfeld as early as 1925 but eventually discovered current amplification in the point-contact transistor that subsequently evolved to become the bipolar junction transistor (BJT).

How Does a Transistor Work?

A transistor is a three-terminal device. In a BJT, an electrical current is fed into the base (B) and modulates the current flow between the other two terminals known as the emitter (E) and collector (C). In FETs, the three terminals are called gate (G), source (S) and drain (D) respectively, and it is the voltage applied to the gate terminal that modulates the current between source and drain.

Bipolar Junction Transistor (BJT)


The schematic symbols for pnp- and npn-type BJTs.

Conceptually, one can understand a bipolar junction transistor as two diodes placed back to back, connected so they share either their positive or their negative terminals. The forward-biased emitter-base junction allows charge carriers to easily flow out of the emitter. The base is made thin enough so that most of the injected carriers will reach the collector rather than recombining in the base. Since small changes in the base current affect the collector current significantly, the transistor can work as an electronic amplifier. The rate of amplification, usually called the current gain (β), is roughly one hundred for most types of BJTs. That is, one milliampere of base current usually induces a collector current of about a hundred milliamperes. BJTs prevail in all sorts of amplifiers from audio to radio frequency applications and are also popular as electronic switching devices.

Field-Effect Transistor (FET)


The schematic symbols for p- and n-channel MOSFETs. The symbols to the right include an extra terminal for the transistor body whereas in those to the left the body is implicitly connected to the ground.

The most common variety of field-effect transistors, the enhancement-mode MOSFET (metal-oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor) can also be viewed as two back-to-back diodes that separate the source and drain terminals. The volume in between is covered by an extremely thin insulating layer that carries the gate electrode. When a voltage is applied between gate and source, an electric field is created in that volume, causing a thin conductive channel to form between the source and drain and allowing current to flow across. The amount of this current can be modulated, or completely turned off, by varying the gate voltage. Because the gate is insulated, no DC current flows to or from the gate electrode. This lack of a gate current (as compared to the BJT's base current), and the ability of the MOSFET to act like a switch, allows particularly efficient digital circuits to be created. Hence, MOSFETs have become the dominant technology used in computing hardware such as microprocessors and memory devices such as RAM.

The most common form of MOSFET transistor in use today is the CMOS (complementary metallic oxide semiconductor) which is the basis for virtually all integrated circuits produced.

Advantages of Transistors over Thermionic Valves

Before the transistor, the thermionic valve or vacuum tube, was the main component of an amplifier. The key advantages that have allowed transistors to replace their valve predecessors in almost all applications are

Valves are still used in very high-power applications such as broadcast radio signal amplification. Some audio amplifiers also use them, their enthusiasts claiming that their sound is superior. In particular, some argue that the larger numbers of electrons in a valve behave with greater statistical accuracy. Other detect a distinctive "warmth" to the tone. The "warmth" is actually distortion caused by the valves, but some audiophiles find a certain amount of "fuzziness" pleasing.

The "second generation" of computers through the late 1950s and 1960s featured boards filled with individual transistors. Subsequently, transistors, other components and the necessary wiring, were integrated into a single, mass-manufactured component in the integrated circuit. In modern digital electronics, single transistors are very rare, though they remain common in power and analog applications.

History

All transistors rely on the ability of certain materials, known as semiconductors, to change their electrical resistance under the control of an electric field. In bipolar transistors, the semiconductor is formed into structures called p-n junctions that allow electricity to flow in only one direction through them – that is they are a conductor when voltage is applied in one direction, and an insulator when it is applied in the other direction.

1900s

Semiconductors had been used in the electronics field for some time before the invention of the transistor. Around the turn of the 20th century they were quite common as detectors in radios, used in a device called a "cat's whisker". These detectors were somewhat troublesome, however, requiring the operator to move a small tungsten filament (the whisker) around the surface of the crystal until it suddenly started working. Then, over a period of a few hours or days, the crystal would slowly stop working and the process would have to be repeated. At the time their operation was completely mysterious. After the introduction of the more reliable and amplified vacuum tube based radios, the cat's whisker systems quickly disappeared.

World War II

In WWII radar research quickly pushed the frequencies of the radio receivers inside them into the area where traditional tube based radio receivers no longer worked well. On a whim, Russell Ohl of Bell Laboratories decided to try a cat's whisker. After hunting one down at a used radio store in Manhattan, he found that it worked much better than tube-based systems.

He then started to try to figure out why they were so "odd". He spent most of 1939 trying to grow more pure versions of the crystals. He soon found that with higher quality crystals the "oddness" went away — but so did their ability to operate as a radio detector. One day he found one of his purest crystals nevertheless worked well, and interestingly, it had a clearly visible crack near the middle. However as he moved about the room trying to test it, the detector would mysteriously work, and then stop again. After some study he found that the behaviour was controlled by the light in the room – more light, more conductance. He invited several other people to see it, and Brattain immediately realized there was some sort of junction at the crack.

Further research cleared up the remaining mystery. The crystal had cracked because either side contained very slightly different amounts of the impurities Ohl could not remove – about 0.2%. One side of the crystal had impurities that added extra electrons (the carriers of electrical current) and made it a conductor. The other had impurities that wanted to bind to these electrons, making it an insulator. When the two were placed side by side the electrons could be pushed out of the side with extra electrons (soon to be known as the emitter) and replaced by new ones being provided (say from a battery) where they would flow into the insulating portion and be collected by the filament (the collector). However, when the voltage was reversed the electrons being pushed into the collector would quickly fill up the "holes", and conduction would stop almost instantly. This junction of the two crystals (or parts of one crystal) created a solid-state diode, and the concept soon became known as semiconduction.

Development

Armed with the knowledge of how these new diodes worked, a crash effort started to learn how to build them on demand. Teams at Purdue University, Bell Labs, MIT, and the University of Chicago all joined forces to build better crystals. Within a year germanium production had been perfected to the point where military-grade diodes were being used in most radar sets.

The key to the development of the transistor was the further understanding of the process of the electron mobility in a semiconductor. It was realized that if there was some way to control the flow of the electrons from the emitter to the collector, one could build an amplifier. For instance, if you placed contacts on either side of a single type of crystal the current would not flow through it. However if a third contact could then "inject" electrons or holes into the material, the current would flow.

Actually doing this appeared to be very difficult. If the crystal were of any reasonable size, the amount of electrons (or holes) supplied would have to be very large – making it less than useful as an amplifier because it would require a large current to start with. That said, the whole idea of the crystal diode was that the crystal itself could provide the electrons over a very small distance. The key appeared to be to place the input and output contacts very close together on the surface of the crystal.

Brattain started working on building such a device, and tantalizing hints of amplification continued to appear as the team worked on the problem. One day the system would work and the next it wouldn't. In one instance a non-working system started working when placed in water. The two eventually developed a new branch of quantum mechanics known as surface physics to account for the behaviour.

Essentially the electrons in any one piece of the crystal would migrate about due to nearby charges. Electrons in the emitters, or the "holes" in the collectors, would cluster at the surface of the crystal where they could find their opposite charge "floating around" in the air (or water). Yet they could be pushed away from the surface from any other location with the application of a small amount of charge. So instead of needing a large supply of electrons, a very small number in the right place would do the trick.

Their understanding solved the problem of needing a very small control area to some degree. Instead of needing two separate semiconductors connected by a common, but tiny, region, a single larger surface would serve. The emitter and collector would both be placed very close together on one side, with the control lead on the other. When current was applied to the control lead, the electrons or holes would be pushed out, right across the entire block of semiconductor, and collect on the far surface. As long as the emitter and collector were very close together, this should allow enough electrons or holes between them to allow conduction to start.

First transistor

The first transistor took some time to construct. They made many attempts to build such a system with various tools, but generally failed. Setups where the contacts were close enough were invariably as fragile as the original cat's whisker detectors had been. Eventually they had a practical breakthrough. A piece of gold foil was glued to the edge of a plastic wedge, and then the foil was sliced with a razor at the tip of the triangle. The result was two very closely spaced contacts of gold. When the plastic was pushed down onto the surface of a crystal and voltage applied to the other side (on the base of the crystal), current started to flow from one contact to the other as the base voltage pushed the electrons away from the base towards the other side near the contacts. The point-contact transistor had been invented, a primitive variation of the BJT. While the device was constructed a week earlier, Brattain's notes describe the first demonstration to higher-ups at Bell Labs on the afternoon of December 23, 1947, often given as the birthdate of the transistor. The pnp point-contact germanium transistor operated as a speech amplifier with a power gain of 18 in that trial. Such a system was of limited practical use, no better physically than the cat's whisker of old. Soon newer methods and understanding allowed for much more robust versions. Within a few years, transistor-based products, most notably radios were appearing on the market.

Origin of Name

In a vacuum tube (British: valve), changes in plate current are proportional to changes in grid voltage, to a first approximation. The ratio (current / voltage) has the dimensions of a conductance. Since the current and voltage are not measured at the same terminals, it is referred to as the "transconductance" rather than "conductance," and is an important figure of merit for a vacuum tube. Had vacuum tubes been named for their function rather than their structure, they might have been called "transconductors."

John R. Pierce coined the name "transistor" in 1949. It was originally thought that the transistor could be usefully considered to be the electronic dual of a vacuum tube. The property equivalent to transconductance would have been "transresistance" and the device would then have been a "transresistor," or "transistor" for short. It transpired that the transistor was not close enough to being a vacuum-tube dual for the concept to have any quantitative usefulness, and the concept of "transresistance" lives on only in the name "transistor."

Early Consumer and Hobbyist Applications

The transistor radio was not the first "mainstream" application of transistors. Even by the 1940s, ordinary consumer radios were rather sophisticated pieces of electronics, using several tubes, and based on Armstrong's brilliantly ingenious superheterodyne technology. To meet consumer expectations, it was necessary for a transistor radio to use similar circuitry. It was not easy in the early days to get transistors to operate reliably as amplifiers and oscillators in the RF range—even the 540-1700 "kilocycle" AM broadcast band. Miniaturized versions of many necessary components such as IF transformers and multiganged tuning capacitors were not available.

The first major consumer application of transistors was the hearing aid, which required only audio amplification, and represented a market where miniaturization was important and low price was not a requirement. Raytheon, which had developed miniaturized and ruggedized vacuum tubes for the military, introduced the first transistorized hearing aids.

Raytheon also introduced the first transistor, the CK722, that was widely available through ordinary commercial channels. Electronics hobbyists of the fifties have a warm place in their heart for the CK722, essentially the only transistor available for almost a decade, and innumerable homebrew projects were designed around it. The CK722's available to hobbyists were, essentially, those that had failed QC for more demanding applications. Germanium based, with low gain and high emitter-to-collector leakage, and high variation in characteristics from unit to unit, designing practical circuits with these components was quite a challenge.

Miniaturization

The first CMOS transistor circuit was introduced by RCA in 1963.

Another level of miniaturization later became possible with the invention of the integrated circuit, which included many transistors on one chip of silicon, and led to a new generation of devices such as pocket calculators and digital watches.

External link and references

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Synonyms: Transistor

Synonyms: electronic transistor (n), junction transistor (n). (additional references)

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Crosswords: Transistor

English words defined with "transistor": basecollectoremitterp-n-p transistorShockleyWilliam Bradford Shockley, William Shockley. (references)
Specialty definitions using "transistor": alloy transistor, alloy-diffused mesa transistor, alloyed transistor, alloy-junction transistorbipolar transistorCC transistor, CD transistor, CE transistor, crowded thin-film transistor characteristics, CS transistordepletion MOS field effect transistor, double-diffused mesa transistorenhancement MOS field-effect transistor, epitaxial transistor, epitaxial-growth mesa transistor, epoxy transistorfield effect transistor, filamentary transistorgermanium mesa transistoridealised transistor, idealized transistorJunction Field Effect Transistor, junction field-effect transistor, junction-gate field-effect transistorMetal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor, metal-oxide-semiconductor transistor, metal-oxide-silicon transistor, molded transistor, MOS amplifying transistor, MOS parasitic transistor, MOS switching transistor, MOS transistor, moulded transistorn-channel depletion MOS field-effect transistor, n-channel enhancement MOS field-effect transistor, nixie-driver transistorparasitic metal-oxide-semiconductor transistor, parasitic MOS transistor, passivated mesa transistor, p-channel depletion MOS field-effect transistor, p-channel enhancement MOS field-effect transistor, P-channel field-effect transistor, programmable unijunction transistorsingle-electron transistortransistor Gaussian-pulse power rating, transistor linear peak envelope power rating, tuning fork transistor movementuncompensated transistor stage. (references)
Non-English Usage: "Transistor" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses.

Danish (transistor), Dutch (transistor), French (transistor), German (transistor), Italian (transistor), Portuguese (transistor), Spanish (transistor), Swedish (transistor), Turkish (transistor).

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Modern Usage: Transistor

DomainUsage

Lyrics

Transistor radio (Brown Eyed Girl; performing artist: VAN MORRISON)

With a transistor radio ("Brown Eyed Girl"; performing artist: Van Morrison)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Commercial Usage: Transistor

DomainTitle

Books

  • Transistor sizing for timing optimization of combinational digital CMOS circuits (reference)

  • Radio valve and transistor data: characteristics of 3,000 valves and cathode ray tubes, 4,500 transistors, diodes, rectifiers and integrated circuits (reference)

  • Monolithically integrated InGaAs/Inp photodiode-junction field-effect transistor receivers for fiber-optic telecommunication (reference)

  • Understanding Tube and Transistor Cir Volume 3 (reference)

  • TCAD based development of a polysilicon emitter transistor in a BiCMOS technology (reference)

    (more book examples)

  

Music

  

High Tech

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Image Slideshow: Transistor

Computer Images:
Transistor

More pictures...

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Photo Album: Transistor

ThumbnailDescription & CreditThumbnailDescription & Credit

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the invention of the transistor, co-inventors William Shockley, John Bardeen, and Walter Brattain being honored during the IEEE INTERCON in New York City. Each of the Nobel Laureates receiving a special gold medal dona. Credit: Library of Congress.

Hand holding pencil over transistor, and slide rule. Credit: Library of Congress.

Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits.

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Digital Photo Gallery: Transistor
 

"Blue Radio" by Christie Ortiz
Commentary: "An close up of an old transistor radio in my bedroom."

Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers.

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Non-Fiction Usage: Transistor

SubjectTopicQuote

Economic History

Armenia

The government and the local business community are exploring the possibility of establishing several industrial parks that would involve Zvartnots International Airport and such existing large electronics companies as Mars (a local electronics firm) and Transistor. (references)

Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits.

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Usage Frequency: Transistor

"Transistor" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Transistor" is used about 246 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)
Parts of SpeechPercentUsage per
100 Million Words
Rank in English
Noun (singular)100%24619,009

Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.

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Expressions: Transistor

Expressions using "transistor": alloy transistor alloyed transistor bipolar transistor CC transistor CD transistor CE transistor chopper transistor CS transistor depletion MOS field effect transistor electronic transistor epitaxial transistor epoxy transistor field effect transistor filamentary transistor germanium mesa transistor idealised transistor idealized transistor junction Field Effect Transistor junction transistor mesa transistor metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor molded transistor MOS amplifying transistor MOS parasitic transistor MOS switching transistor MOS transistor moulded transistor parasitic MOS transistor passivated mesa transistor programmable unijunction transistor transistor ageing transistor aging transistor channeling transistor channelling transistor linear peak envelope power rating tuning fork transistor movement uncompensated transistor stage. Additional references.

Hyphenated Usage

Beginning with "transistor": transistor-powered, Transistor-Transistor Logic.

Ending with "transistor": bipolar-transistor, diffusion-transistor, drift-transistor, field-effect-transistor, merged-transistor, million-transistor, thin-film-transistor.

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Frequency of Internet Keywords: Transistor

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.
 
ExpressionFrequency
per Day
ExpressionFrequency
per Day

transistor

1,098

transistor tutorial

20

transistor cross reference

74

bfr transistor

19

transistor radio

68

bjt transistor

17

bipolar transistor

56

transistor device

16

power transistor

35

unijunction transistor

16

darlington transistor

31

transistor amplifier

16

npn transistor

30

bipolar junction transistor

14

pnp transistor

29

history transistor

14

field effect transistor

28

es que transistor un

12

transistor data sheet

28

2n2222 transistor

12

transistor photo

27

transistor data

12

rf transistor

26

transistor tester

12

fet transistor

25

picture transistor

11

transistor testing

24

transistor switch

11

theory transistor

23

obsolete transistor

11

motorola transistor

23

transistor datasheet

11

transistor circuit

22

replacement transistor

10

transistor equivalent

21

kit radio transistor

10

transistor work

20

rf power transistor

10

mosfet transistor

20

book data transistor

10
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Modern Translation: Transistor

Language Translations for "transistor"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.

Albanian

  

tranzitor. (various references)

   

Arabic 

  

‏مذياع صغير, ‏ترانزستور جهاز راديو صغير. (various references)

   

Bulgarian 

  

транзистор, портативен радиоприемник. (various references)

   

Chinese 

  

晶体管. (various references)

   

Czech

  

tranzistor. (various references)

   

Danish

  

transistor. (various references)

   

Dutch

  

transistor, tor (beetle). (various references)

   

Esperanto

  

transistoro. (various references)

   

Finnish

  

transistorin vanhentaminen (ageing, aging, transistor ageing, transistor aging), transistorin vanheneminen (ageing, aging, transistor ageing, transistor aging), transistorin lineaarinen modulaatiohuipputeho (linear PEP, transistor linear peak envelope power rating), transistorin kanavointi (channeling, channelling, transistor channeling, transistor channelling), gigahertsitransistori (gigacycle transistor), mesatransistori (mesa transistor), matkaradio (portable radio, transistor set), liitoskanavatransistori (JFET, JUGFET, junction field-effect transistor, junction-gate field-effect transistor), lejeerausdiffusoitu mesatransistori (alloy-diffused mesa transistor), lejeerattu transistori (alloy transistor, alloyed transistor, alloy-junction transistor), lankatransistori (filamentary transistor), kytkintransistori (chopper, chopper transistor), kaksoisdiffusoitu mesatransistori (double-diffused mesa transistor), idealisoitu transistori (idealised transistor, idealized transistor), metalliseostransistori (alloy transistor, alloyed transistor, alloy-junction transistor), hakkuri (chipper, chopper, chopper transistor, cutting bar, edging grinder, hammer hog, hammer mill, hog, hogger, hogging machine, refuse grinder, wood hog), MOS-vahvistin (amplifying MOST, MOS amplifier, MOS amplifying transistor), germaniummesatransistori (germanium mesa transistor), epoksimuoviin koteloitu transistori (epoxy transistor, molded transistor, moulded transistor), epitaksiakasvulla varustettu transistori (epitaxial-growth mesa transistor), avaustyypin mosfetti (enhancement MOS field-effect transistor, enhancement MOST), avaustyypin metallioksidikanavatransistori (enhancement MOS field-effect transistor, enhancement MOST), hakkuritransistori (chopper, chopper transistor), passivoitu mesatransistori (passivated mesa transistor), yhteisemitteritransistori (CE transistor), sulkutyyppinen metallioksidikanavatransistori (depletion MOS field effect transistor, depletion MOST), seostransistori (alloy transistor, alloyed transistor, alloy-junction transistor), radiovastaanotin (radio set, transistor set), pnip-transistori (p-n-i-p transistor), P-kanavatransistori (p-channel FET, P-channel field-effect transistor, p-FET), P-kanavainen sulkumosfetti (depletion p-MOST, p-channel depletion MOS field-effect transistor, p-channel depletion MOST), MOS-kytkintransistori (MOS digital element, MOS switch, MOS switching transistor, switching MOST), P-kanavainen avausmosfetti (enhancement p-MOST, p-channel enhancement MOS field-effect transistor, p-channel enhancement MOST), äänirautatransistorin kellomekanismi (tuning fork transistor movement), passiivinen metallioksiditransistori (MOS parasitic transistor, parasitic FET, parasitic field-effect-transistor, parasitic metal-oxide-semiconductor transistor, parasitic MOS transistor, parasitic MOST), ohjelmoitava unistori (programmable unijunction transistor), n-kanavainen sulkumosfetti (depletion n-MOST, n-channel depletion MOS field-effect transistor, n-channel depletion MOST), n-kanavainen avausmosfetti (enhancement n-MOST, n-channel enhancement MOS field-effect transistor, n-channel enhancement MOST), näyttöputken käyttötransistori (nixie-driver transistor), yhteiskollektoritransistori (CC transistor), MOS-transistori (metal-oxide-semiconductor transistor, metal-oxide-silicon transistor, MOS transistor, MOST), P-kanavainen fetti (p-channel FET, P-channel field-effect transistor, p-FET). (various references)

   

French

  

transistor. (various references)

   

German

  

Transistor. (various references)

   

Greek 

  

τρανζίστορ. (various references)

   

Hebrew 

  

מקמש (transceiver). (various references)

   

Hungarian

  

tranzisztor. (various references)

   

Italian

  

transistor. (various references)

   

Japanese Kanji 

  

トラップ射撃 (electrical transistor, tradition, traditional, traffic, traffic builder, trance, tranquilizer, transaction, transactional analysis, Trans-Am, trans-American, transceiver, transcription, transformer, transistor glamour, transit, transnational, transparency, transponder, Transylvania, trap shooting, trappiste, trappistine, travel, travel agency, travel bureau, travel set, travel watch, travelers check, travellers' cheque, travelling, traverse, trouble, trouble shot, troublemaker, trouble-shooting, trough, trunk, trunk room, trunks, work). (various references)

   

Japanese Katakana 

  

トランジスター . (various references)

   

Korean 

  

트랜지스터. (various references)

   

Manx

  

transistagh. (various references)

   

Papiamen

  

transester. (various references)

   

Pig Latin

  

ansistortray.(various references)

   

Portuguese

  

transistor. (various references)

   

Russian 

  

транзистор транзисторный, транзистор. (various references)

   

Serbo-Croatian

  

tranzistor. (various references)

   

Spanish

  

transistor. (various references)

   

Swedish

  

transistorradio, transistor. (various references)

   

Turkish

  

transistorlu radyo, transistor. (various references)

   

Ukrainian

  

транзистор. (various references)

   

Vietnamese 

  

bóng bán dẫn. (various references)

Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

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Derivations & Misspellings: Transistor

Derivations

Words beginning with "transistor": transistorise, transistorised, transistorises, transistorising, transistorization, transistorizations, transistorize, transistorized, transistorizes, transistorizing, transistors. (additional references)


Misspellings

"Transistor" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: transactor, transister, transisto, transistory. (additional references)

Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

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Rhyming with "Transistor"

# of Phoneme MatchesPronunciationWord(s) rhyming with "transistor" (pronounced tranzi"ster)
4-i" s t erblister, Lister, Mister, sister, twister.
3-s t erdumpster, duster, Easter, adjuster, administer, alabaster, ancestor, aster, banister, bannister, barrister, blaster, blockbuster, bluster, bolster, booster, broadcaster, burgomaster, Buster, canister, cannister, caster, Castor, cloister, cluster, coaster, concertmaster, coster, Dempster, Dexter, digester, disaster, ester, faster, Feaster, fester, filibuster, fluster, forecaster, Forester, Foster, gangbuster, gangster, Gaster, grandmaster, hamster, harvester, headmaster, heister, holster, huckster, imposter, impostor, investor, jester, juster, keister, kiester, lackluster, laster, Leister, lobster, Luster, lustre, master, minister, Minster, mobster, molester, monster, muenster, Munster, muster, nester, Nestor, newscaster, oldster, oleaster, ouster, oyster, paster, pastor, pester, pilaster, plaster, pollster, polyester, poster, postmaster, prankster, protester, quartermaster, raster, register, requester, rester, ringmaster, roadster, roaster, roister, rooster, roster, royster, schoolmaster, scoutmaster, seamster, semester, sequester, shyster, sinister, spinster, sportscaster, stepsister, taskmaster, taster, teamster, tester, thruster, tipster, toaster, toastmaster, trickster, trimester, Ulster, upholster, waster, Webster, Wester, youngster, zoster.

Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits.

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Anagrams: Transistor

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams

Words within the letters "a-i-n-o-r-r-s-s-t-t"

-1 letter: nitrators, strontias.

-2 letters: arsonist, nitrator, stations, strontia, traitors, transits.

-3 letters: aorists, aristos, aroints, artists, attorns, instars, intorts, rations, rattons, santirs, sartors, satoris, station, stators, strains, straits, tanists, traitor, transit, tritons, tsarist.

-4 letters: aorist, aristo, aroint, arsino, arsons, artist, assort, attorn, instar, intort, intros, nitros, norias, ottars, ration, ratios, ratton, roasts, rosins, rostra, saints, santir.

 Words containing the letters "a-i-n-o-r-r-s-s-t-t"
 

+1 letter: transistors.

 

+2 letters: frustrations, prostrations, restorations.

 

+3 letters: introgressant, registrations, transistorise, transistorize.

 

+4 letters: administrators, antiterrorisms, antiterrorists, disintegrators, introgressants, irrationalists, narratologists, orchestrations, predestinators, procrastinates, recreationists, reforestations, remonstrations, reservationist, retranslations, structurations, transcriptions, transistorised, transistorises, transistorized, transistorizes, transitoriness, transmigrators, transpirations.

 

+5 letters: gastroenteritis, misregistration, oversaturations, preservationist, procrastinators, prognosticators, protohistorians, radiostrontiums, representations, repristinations, reregistrations, reservationists, supersaturation, tergiversations, transformations, transhistorical, transistorising, transistorizing, transmigrations, transmissometer, transportations, trisoctahedrons, ultramodernists, vasoconstrictor.

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.

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INDEX

1. Definition
2. Synonyms
3. Crosswords
4. Usage: Modern
5. Usage: Commercial
6. Images: Slideshow
7. Images: Photo Album
8. Images: Digital Art
9. Quotations: Non-fiction
10. Usage Frequency
11. Expressions
12. Expressions: Internet
13. Translations: Modern
14. Derivations
15. Rhymes
16. Anagrams
17. Bibliography


  

Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.