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Re: Transistorized

At 4:57 PM -0800 11/10/99, William Beaty wrote:
misconceptions. Here are two:

BIPOLAR TRANSISTORS AMPLIFY CURRENT. A TINY CURRENT IN THE "BASE"
LEAD CONTROLS A LARGE CURRENT IN THE "COLLECTOR" LEAD.

Textbooks clearly state that transistors amplify current. I never was
able to figure out how one current could control another.


I remember 'learning' that the beta or hfe rating of a junction
transistor was the 'current amplification' ratio. The collector
current was typically 50 to 100 times larger than the base current.
The Ebers-Moll model goes a bit further by including the (almost
constant) base-collector voltage drop.

Please let us know when you get a better conceptual model figured out.

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