Each type of transistors has their own characteristics, advantages and disadvantages. Commonly used semiconductor materials for manufacturing transistor are Silicon, Germanium and Gallium-Arsenide.īasically, the transistors are classified depending on their structure. Irrespective of the family they belong to, all Transistors have proper / specific arrangement of different semiconductor materials. Types of TransistorsĪs mentioned earlier, on a broader scale, the major families of Transistors are BJTs and FETs. Again, depletion and enhancement mode transistors are further classified into respective N–Channel and P–Channel.
MOSFETs are classified into Depletion Mode and Enhancement Mode. Junction FET transistors are further classified into N–Channel JFET and P–Channel JFET depending on their construction. The FET transistors are classified into JFET and MOSFET. The BJTs are again classified into NPN and PNP transistors. They are: Bipolar Junction Transistors (BJT) and Field Effect Transistors (FET).
Transistors are basically classified into two types. The classification of transistors can be easily understood by observing the above tree diagram. The following tree diagram explains a Basic Classification of different Transistor types. Transistor is an essential component is almost every electronic circuit like: Amplifiers, Switching, Oscillators, Voltage Regulators, Power Supplies and most importantly, the Digital Logic ICs.įrom the time of invention of the first transistor to the present day, transistors are classified into different types depending either on their construction or their operation. The Transistor is one of the important active components (a device which can produce an output signal higher power than that in the input signal). Transistors are small in size and it requires low energy for operation and also it has low power dissipation. Since a long time, the vacuum tubes are replaced with transistors because the transistors have more benefits over vacuum tubes. A Transistor is a three terminal device and a small current / voltage at one terminal (or lead) will control a large flow of current between the other two terminals (leads). Transistor is a semiconductor device which is used to either amplify the signals or to act as an electrically controlled switch.