Talk:How a transistor works

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The content that will go on this page should certainly be on Wikipedia. Whether or not it should be in an article with this title or not is arguable. The reason the content that is to go on this page should not be removed should be apparent when comparing it to other articles. If you take a look at the articles for cars, airplanes, or computers, they do not start out by explaining thermodynamics, aerodynamics, or electromagnetics; they describe what the objects function is and then either much later or in a separate article explain how they really work. A functional description of a transistor is certainly the type of thing you'd find on Wikipedia, and I am simply beginning to put that information in a place where I think people would look. If you think there is something I am not taking into consideration, please say so.

@modi 11:27, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Note that when we talk about transistors, we talk about a whole group of them such as the JFET, MOSFET and BJT. FETs can be discussed as one group while BJT must be discussed seperately due to the the difference in the way the devices function. However the policy espoused by Wikipedia does not allow for the posting of such articles without encyclopedic and balanced content. I would highly suggest that this article be taken down and reworked.

Gammadion 06:10, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

I was thinking we could use the content of this article for the article "Digital logic", since right now the Digital logic article just redirects to Digital electronics.

@modi 17:20, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Very informal article

Is this article salvageable? Its gonna need a total rewrite to be encyclopedia worthy. Roger 02:54, 14 May 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Plagarism or flattery? :)

I'm glad someone liked my article[1], but uploading it to WP is VERY not cool, besides being a violation of WP policies. Also, my crude ASCII art is no less important to me than a photographers photos, so if used, should be posted as images, where attribution can be listed on each. Or, someone with ambition could whip up their own much-improved versions on msPaint or similar. I've reverted the article pending changes.

Also: my original article was created. And like much of science, it's the artwork of an original author. If I was to delete it and start over, it would come out quite differently. And if a group of people were to write a transistor explanation, it would come out differently than mine. So why not get together and create another transistor article? Taking another WP author's work, especially without bothering to ask permission, or even tell them? Weird and creepy. --Wjbeaty 17:50, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Also, Bipolar junction transistor doesn't explain how transistors work. It only gives mathematical models... but that's like pretending that Ohm's law explains the inner workings of Resistors. I think it would be better to add material there, rather than fix this article.--Wjbeaty 18:39, 9 September 2007 (UTC)



Perhaps this article does not belong under the title that it is under. The information that this article would contain (were it to be more extensive) does belong on Wikipedia, however. I have, unfortunately, not been able to work on this article as much as I'd intended because I've been very busy lately, but hopefully I will be able to create some time in the near future to work on it. I was thinking this article should be the article for "digital logic" since digital logic currently redirects to "digital electronics" and it does not belong there, as the two are distinct subjects. Much (or at least some) of the information that belongs in "digital logic" is under the article "boolean algebra", but the treatment there is a bit too abstract to simply redirect "digital logic" to it. If anybody feels that "digital logic" is not the right direction to go in for this article, please say so. Also, if this article goes on too much longer in the state that it's in, and someone wants to do something about it, you can consider my vote against such things forfeit due to negligence of not updating this article.

@modi 05:54, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, I've rewritten it to reflect the title. Hope you like it. As for digital logic, perhaps Logic gate is a good place to start. --Rodhullandemu (talk - contribs) 01:11, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikification

This article has been tagged since January. As it stood, it really was too simple to be of much use (with all due respect to its original author) as an encyclopedic article. I don't think it was intended to go into ins & outs of hole vs electron current, PNP vs NPN, etc. so I've left all that to the Bipolar transistor article. Hopefully it's for someone with reasonable intelligence to come along and get a "Transistors 101"-type introduction. With any luck, all it needs now is a reference to a basic electronics textbook, and I burnt mine in 1973 when I graduated. I'll come back & fix this. --Rodhullandemu (talk - contribs) 22:59, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

More tweaks tonight. If you think it can be improved, feel free. --Rodhullandemu (talk - contribs) 22:12, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Yes, this reads like a how-to

Wikipedia is not a how-to. Perhaps this belongs on Wikibooks. Jake the Editor Man (talk) 21:34, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Have you read it? I think it's basic introduction to principles of transistor operation. It's not a "do this, then do this", which I understand to be the definition of a "how-to". Neither is it a complicated discussion of depletion layers, hole & electron currents, etc. It's pitched at a beginner with some electronic knowledge who wants to know the basics. I know I'm biased, but then I rescued it from its previous sorry state. --Rodhullandemu (please reply here - contribs) 21:56, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
No, an explanation of how something works is an important part of an encyclopedia article. This is not a how-to. Dhaluza (talk) 15:43, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Error in Diagram?

Is the transistor shown in the circuit diagram incorrect? Shouldn't the diode arrow between the base and emitter be pointing from base to emitter, not emitter to base? As it's shown now, no current could flow between base and emitter unless Vin were a negative voltage. Schamberlin (talk) 05:41, 6 June 2008 (UTC)