ge first transistors

[Brent Hilpert]

On 2019-Nov-14, at 10:26 AM, dwight via cctalk wrote:
> ______________________________
> From: cctalk <cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org> on behalf of Chuck Guzis via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
> Sent: Thursday, November 14, 2019 8:22 AM
> To: dwight via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
> Subject: Re: ge first transistors
> 
> On 11/14/19 8:05 AM, dwight via cctalk wrote:
>> FETs come in to basic types, junction and MOS. Junction FETs can only be depletion types but MOS can be both, depletion or enhancement. CMOS uses enhancement types. The CuO was a depletion type junction FET. MOS is about as different from a junction FET as a junction FET is from a bipolar transistor. All three use semiconductors but in different ways. Connecting the three types and saying it was invented in the 1920's is silly. The MOS FET is only in name related to the CuO FET. They were both field effect. They didn't have anywhere near the manufacturing abilities to make MOS FETs at that time, nor did they understand how it worked to make one.
>> Dwight
> 
> So what's your point?
> 
> That Shockley et al. invented the MOSFET?
> That Lilienfeld didn't invent a type of transistor before Shockley et al.?
> That Lilienfeld didn't invent the FET?
> 
> I'm trying to follow.
> 
> The success of any sort of transistor in my own opinion, owes more
> toward materials science (e.g. zone refining) than the notion of the
> devices themselves.

> ...
> --Chuck
> 
> My point was that lumping them all together is like lumping propeller plane, jet planes and rockets as all the same. They all use the principles of throwing mass in the opposite direction of desired motion. They are still quite different when you look just a little closer.
> ...
> Dwight


MOSFETs and JFETs share the same fundamental operating principle: variable constriction of a conducting channel by electrostatic forces. Their implementation details differ, essentially in the manner of achieving gate isolation.

This is significantly different than the fundamental operating principle of BJTs: current-mediated conduction.

I don't get why you'd want to put them in 3 'equally different' categories.
I see MOSFETs and JFETs in one category, BJTs in another.

Put another way, without having looked at either patent in detail, I would wonder what it was in the Lilienfeld patent that Bell had to walk around for the BJT, other than using semiconductors they don't have much in common. I would think if there was conflict, the Lilienfeld patent was extremely broad. On the other hand, I could readily see how somebody trying to patent either the JFET or the MOSFET might run afoul of the Lilienfeld patent.

Or to use your engines analogy, Id see it more as diesel(1) and gasoline(2) engines vs turbine(3) engines.
The first two have significant similarity distinct from the third.