When Transistor Count Mattered

Many Hackaday readers have an interest in retro technology, but we are not the only group who scour the flea markets. Alongside us are the collectors, whose interest is as much cultural as it is te…

Make Your Own Point Contact Transistor

Beyond the power variant, it sometimes seems as though we rarely encounter a discrete transistor these days, such has been the advance of integrated electronics. But they have a rich history, going…

A Simple Liquid Level Indicator With A Single IC

Often, the only liquid level indicator you need is your eyes, such as when looking at your cold beverage on a summer’s day. Other times, though, it’s useful to have some kind of indicat…

All About PNP Transistors

In the early days, PNP bipolar transistors were common, but the bulk of circuits you see today use NPN transistors. As [Aaron Danner] points out, many people think PNP transistors are “backwa…

Homebrew Computer From The Ground Up

Building a retro computer of some sort is a rite of passage for many of us, with some building replicas or restorations of old Commodores, Ataris, and other machines from decades past. Others go ev…

Reprogrammable Transistors

Not every computer can make use of a disk drive when it needs to store persistent data. Embedded systems especially have pushed the development of a series of erasable programmable read-only memori…

Technik: Der Weg zu vielseitigeren Computerchips

Fachleute haben funktionierende 3-D-Chips aus zweidimensionalen Halbleitern gefertigt

Technologie: Ein Halbleiter aus Graphen übertrifft Silizium

Fachleute haben erstmals einen Halbleiter aus Graphen hergestellt, der Vorteile gegenüber Silizium hat

A Transistor, But For Heat Instead Of Electrons

Researchers at UCLA recently developed what they are calling a thermal transistor: a solid-state device able to control the flow of heat with an electric field. This opens the door to controlling t…

CPU Built From Discrete Transistors

We all know, at least intellectually, that our computers are all built with lots of tiny transistors. But beyond that it’s a little hard to describe. They’re printed on a silicon wafer …

Exploring The Early Days Of QRP Radio

Morse code might seem obsolete but for situations with extremely limited bandwidth it’s often still the best communications option available. The code requires a fair amount of training to us…

FET: Fun Endeavors Together

Last time, we’ve looked over FET basics, details, nuances and caveats. Basics aren’t all there is to FETs, however – let’s go through real-world uses, in all their wonderful…

Transistors That Grow On Trees

Modern technology is riddled with innovations that were initially inspired by the natural world. Velcro, bullet trains, airplanes, solar panels, and many other technologies took inspiration from na…

FET: The Friendly Efficient Transistor

If you ever work with a circuit that controls a decent amount of current, you will often encounter a FET – a Field-Effect Transistor. Whether you want to control a couple of powerful LEDs, sw…

MOSFET Heater Is Its Own Thermostat

While we might all be quick to grab a microcontroller and an appropriate sensor to solve some problem, gather data about a system, or control another piece of technology, there are some downsides w…

Frequency Tells Absolute Temperature

It is no secret that semiconductor junctions change their behavior with temperature, and you can use this fact to make a temperature sensor. The problem is that you have to calibrate each device fo…

It’s Not Easy Counting Transistors In The 8086 Processor

For any given processor it’s generally easy to find a statistic on the number of transistors used to construct it, with the famous Intel 8086 CPU generally said to contain 29,000 transistors.…

A Transistor? Memory? Wait, It’s Both!

What do you get if you cross graphene, hexagonal boron nitride, and tungsten diselenide? Well, according to researchers at Hunan University, you get a field effect transistor that can act as both a…

When Only A TO92 Will Do

As through-hole components are supplanted by their surface-mount equivalents, we’re beginning to see the departure of once-common component form factors. Many such as the metal can transistor…