Analog Electronics with LabVIEW®

Unit 2. Transistors and Voltage Amplification

Radio transmitters and receivers have existed since before the end of the nineteenth century. A practical form of wireless telegraph, attributed to G. Marconi, appeared in 1895, and successful transmission across the Atlantic Ocean was achieved in 1901. However, in the early part of the twentieth century, systems were limited by the lack of a means of voltage amplification. The appearance of a voltage amplification device, the vacuum tube, dramatically improved the concept, as microvolt signals could be boosted for receiving and transmitting.

In the middle of the twentieth century, the transistor appeared. The idea of transistors based on a sandwich of pn junctions (BJT) and a field-effect transistor ...