LCDs meet the transistor....

Retromaster · Post by **Retromaster** » Sun Jan 21, 2007 8:04 pm

So right now i'm staring at my LCD monitor, lookin at your posts.....bloodshooting my eyes......Until... for the second time in my life.......I actually thought......Every pixel on my screen has a transistor......but how did all those transistors fit on a circuit board? there are millions! i'm not talking about those common big 2n4401 transistors that we all love and know.....The MICRO transistor. but surely there are too many to fit in ics...how do all the transistors fit in my computers hardware people?

dman762000 · Post by **dman762000** » Sun Jan 21, 2007 9:05 pm

they are not what you would think of as normal transistors
look up "making a thin film transistor liquid crystal display" on Google there should be a video somewhere that explains it pretty good
also search in the forums here I think someone posted it some time ago

timmeh87 · Post by **timmeh87** » Sun Jan 21, 2007 9:43 pm

transistors these days are incredibly small.

forget your lcd for a minute, think about this: there are more than 17 billion transistors in a single one-inch-square 2gb flash chip. (assuming one transistor per bit)

modern integrated circuits are built on a single crystal of silicon. different kinds of transistors are made by masking the crystal and doping certain areas with phosphorus or aluminum. the conductors are aluminum and the insulators are silicon dioxide. after many many mask/dope/wash cycles, a complex network of transistors has been created. it looks like this

(pentium processor)
http://bwrc.eecs.berkeley.edu/CIC/die_p ... entium.gif

(close up view of something else)
http://www.arthistoryclub.com/art_histo ... 400x).jpeg

typical minimum feature size these days is 65 nanometers. 65nm fits into a meter more than 15 million times.

Post by **Gamelver** » Sun Jan 21, 2007 11:22 pm

Transistors are essentially bits of negatively and positively charged silicon material.....with lithography the P and N (positive and negative) material can be made extremely small...

Check Wikipedia for more info

.

timmeh87 · Post by **timmeh87** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 12:10 am

although bipolar junction transistors were invented first, and were hugely popular at the beginning of the electronics revolution (one might even argue that they caused it), virtually all computers these days use FET technology. why? much lower power consumption.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_effect_transistor

Retromaster · Post by **Retromaster** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 12:43 pm

timmeh87 wrote:transistors these days are incredibly small.

forget your lcd for a minute, think about this: there are more than 17 billion transistors in a single one-inch-square 2gb flash chip. (assuming one transistor per bit)

modern integrated circuits are built on a single crystal of silicon. different kinds of transistors are made by masking the crystal and doping certain areas with phosphorus or aluminum. the conductors are aluminum and the insulators are silicon dioxide. after many many mask/dope/wash cycles, a complex network of transistors has been created. it looks like this

(pentium processor)
http://bwrc.eecs.berkeley.edu/CIC/die_p ... entium.gif

(close up view of something else)
http://www.arthistoryclub.com/art_histo ... 400x).jpeg

typical minimum feature size these days is 65 nanometers. 65nm fits into a meter more than 15 million times.

WOOOOWWWW........
17 billion transistors.......
that's 3 times the people on earth!
damn....technology always blows the not present mind right out of my hollow skull....
When I was soldering my computers fried power supply, I found really odd transistors- they were giant and had more than tree leads.
I'll post a pic, but my camera broke(thnks to my relative's idiocy.)

Post by **Skyone** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 6:12 pm

Retromaster wrote:When I was soldering my computers fried power supply, I found really odd transistors- they were giant and had more than tree leads.

You mean, electrolytic?

EDIT: Mind fart, thought we were talking about caps.

Retromaster · Post by **Retromaster** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 6:28 pm

Skyone wrote:
Retromaster wrote:When I was soldering my computers fried power supply, I found really odd transistors- they were giant and had more than tree leads.
You mean, electrolytic?

Electrolyctic transistors.....never heard of that.....I need to learn more about electronics than I already know......
Do these transistors look like this:
Are big and rectangular
have more than 5 leads(don't remember how many were on it)
and look sort of like power regulators....And no, not exactly. I've seen power regulating transistors, but these aren't like that.

Post by **gannon** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 6:53 pm

Transistors have only 3 leads unless they're a mutli-transistor package (that I know of). Just because they were in a TO-220/similar package doesn't mean they're transistors.

Retromaster · Post by **Retromaster** » Mon Jan 22, 2007 7:04 pm

Once I find a working camera i'll post a pic.
however, I have an electrical engineering guide and a for dummies book that someone gave me not realizing my potential in electronics, and there are a couple pictures of different transistors and I think I saw the one in my fried power supply contains. If I run home real quick (i'm posting this from the abandoned school house again, for no apparent reason as i've already fixed my power supply. to loot parts from the computers maybe?)
I can find the book and confirm the data, but since I came here for a reason, I won't. What exactly are multi package transistors, Gannon?
these transistors were huge. they probably had AT LEAST 7 leads.
can these be obtained at rat shack? if the power supply fires out again and the transistor is demolished?