transistor
pronunciation
How to pronounce transistor in British English:
UK [trænˈzɪstə(r)]
How to pronounce transistor in American English:
US [trænˈzɪstər]
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- Noun:
- a semiconductor device capable of amplification
Word Origin
- transistor (n.)
- small electronic device, 1948, from transfer + resistor, so called because it transfers an electrical current across a resistor. Said to have been coined by U.S. electrical engineer John Robinson Pierce (1910-2002) of Bell Telephone Laboratories, Murray Hill, N.J., where the device was invented in 1947. It took over many functions of the vacuum tube. Transistor radio is first recorded 1958.
Example
- 1. The transistor radio was followed by transistor televisions and videotape recorders .
- 2. The same goes for the transistor .
- 3. The transistor went on to replace bulky vacuum tubes and mechanical relays .
- 4. The transistor alone is the building block for the modern computer and consumer-electronics industries .
- 5. In a conventional transistor , these components lie in about the same plane .