transistor

/trænˈzɪstər/

/trænˈzɪstə/

Other forms: transistors

Use the noun transistor to describe the small metal device that helps send and amplify signals in a radio. Your grandpa might carry a transistor radio around on game day.

You may have heard of a transistor radio, or a portable radio that was produced in the 1950s after the development of transistors. These tiny devices made it possible for much smaller electronics to be made, like radios that people could carry in their hands. Transistors are still used in electronic products today. The word comes from the words transfer and resistor, because an electrical current in a transistor is transferred across a resistor, a two-terminal component of electronics.

Definitions of transistor

1. noun

   a semiconductor device capable of amplification
   synonyms: electronic transistor, junction transistor

   types:

   FET, field-effect transistor

   a transistor in which most current flows in a channel whose effective resistance can be controlled by a transverse electric field

   p-n-p transistor

   a junction transistor having an n-type semiconductor between a p-type semiconductor that serves as an emitter and a p-type semiconductor that serves as a collector

   type of:

   semiconductor, semiconductor device, semiconductor unit

   a conductor made with semiconducting material