Basic Electronics Chapter 1: Introduction to Electronics

Intended Learning Outcomes

1. Define Electronics.
2. Discuss the history and application of Electronics.
3. Enumerate some Electronics components.
Abstraction

Electronics

Electronics comprises the physics, engineering, technology and applications that deal with the
emission, flow and control of electrons in vacuum and matter.

 Brief History
Electronics’ actual history began with the invention of vacuum diode by J.A. Fleming, in
1897; and, after that, a vacuum triode was implemented by Lee De Forest to amplify electrical
signals. This led to the introduction of tetrode and pentode tubes that dominated the world until the
World War II.
Subsequently, the transistor era began with the junction transistor invention in 1948. Even
though, this particular invention got a Nobel Prize, yet it was later replaced with a bulky vacuum tube
that would consume high power for its operation. The use of germanium and silicon semiconductor
materials made theses transistor gain the popularity and wide-acceptance usage in different electronic
circuits.
The subsequent years witnessed the invention of the integrated circuits (ICs) that drastically
changed the electronic circuits’ nature as the entire electronic circuit got integrated on a single chip,
which resulted in low: cost, size and weight electronic devices. The years 1958 to 1975 marked the
introduction of IC with enlarged capabilities of over several thousand components on a single chip
such as small-scale integration, medium-large scale and very-large scale integration ICs.
And the trend further carried forward with the JFETS and MOSFETs that were developed
during 1951 to 1958 by improving the device designing process and by making more reliable and
powerful transistors.

 Electronics Components

Vacuum tubes 
 Vacuum tubes (Thermionic valves) were among the earliest electronic components. They
were almost solely responsible for the electronics revolution of the first half of the 20 th
century. 

Figure 1.1. Vacuum Tubes (self-photographed by Stefan Riepl)

 They allowed for vastly more complicated systems and gave us radio, television,
phonographs, radar, long-distance telephony and much more.
 They played a leading role in the field of microwave and high power transmission as well as
television receivers until the middle of the 1980s.

Course Code Course Title Date Effective: Rev. No. Prepared by: Page No.:
???? Basic Electronics 1st Sem. S.Y. 2020-2021 00 A.F. Rombaoa/A.M. Villanueva 1 of 4
Basic Electronics Chapter 1: Introduction to Electronics

 Vacuum tubes are still used in some specialist applications such as high power RF
amplifiers, cathode ray tubes, specialist audio equipment, guitar amplifiers and
some microwave devices.
Point-contact Transistor
 The first working point-contact transistor was invented by John Bardeen and Walter Houser
Brattain at Bell Labs in 1947. 

Figure 1.2. An early model of transistor.(Rěnzhě māo)

 In April 1955, the IBM 608 was the first IBM product to use transistor circuits without any
vacuum tubes and is believed to be the first all-transistorized calculator to be manufactured
for the commercial market.
 The 608 contained more than 3,000 germanium transistors. 
 Thomas J. Watson Jr. ordered all future IBM products to use transistors in their design.
MOSFET (Metal–Oxide–Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor)
 The MOSFET (MOS transistor) was invented by Mohamed Atalla and Dawon Kahng at Bell
Labs in 1959.

Figure 1.3. MOSFET, showing gate (G), body (B), source (S), and drain (D) terminals. (Brews
Ohare)
 The MOSFET was the first truly compact transistor that could be miniaturised and mass-
produced for a wide range of uses. 
 Its advantages include high scalability, affordability, low power consumption, and high
density. 

Course Code Course Title Date Effective: Rev. No. Prepared by: Page No.:
???? Basic Electronics 1st Sem. S.Y. 2020-2021 00 A.F. Rombaoa/A.M. Villanueva 2 of 4
Basic Electronics Chapter 1: Introduction to Electronics

 It revolutionized the electronics industry, becoming the most widely used electronic device in
the world.
 The MOSFET is the basic element in most modern electronic equipment, and has been
central to the electronics revolution, the microelectronics revolution, and the Digital
Revolution. 
 The MOSFET has thus been credited as the birth of modern electronics, and possibly the most
important invention in electronics.
Integrated Circuit (IC)
 Newly employed by Texas Instruments, Jack Kilby recorded his initial ideas concerning the
integrated circuit in July 1958, successfully demonstrating the first working example of an
integrated circuit on 12 September 1958.
 In his patent application of 6 February 1959, Kilby described his new device as "a body of
semiconductor material … wherein all the components of the electronic circuit are
completely integrated."

Figure 1.4. Erasable programmable read-only memory (EPROM) integrated circuits in dual in-
line packages. (Zephyris)
 An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or
a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip")
of semiconductor material that is normally silicon.
 The integration of large numbers of tiny MOS transistors into a small chip results in circuits
that are orders of magnitude smaller, faster, and less expensive than those constructed of
discrete electronic components.
 ICs are now used in virtually all electronic equipment and have revolutionized the world
of electronics. 
 Computers, mobile phones, and other digital home appliances are now inextricable parts of
the structure of modern societies, made possible by the small size and low cost of ICs.

Chapter Exercises:

1. Make a timeline about the history of Electronics.

2. Briefly explain some branches of Electronics:

a. Digital electronics
b. Analog electronics
c. Microelectronics
d. Power electronics
e. Semiconductor devices
f. Telecommunications

Course Code Course Title Date Effective: Rev. No. Prepared by: Page No.:
???? Basic Electronics 1st Sem. S.Y. 2020-2021 00 A.F. Rombaoa/A.M. Villanueva 3 of 4
Basic Electronics Chapter 1: Introduction to Electronics

References:

1. Golio, Mike and Golio, Janet (2018). RF and Microwave Passive and Active Technologies. CRC
Press. pp. 18–2.
2. Williams, J. B. (2017). The Electronics Revolution: Inventing the Future. Springer. p. 75.
3. Colinge, Jean-Pierre; Greer, James C. (2016). Nanowire Transistors: Physics of Devices and
Materials in One Dimension. Cambridge University Press. p. 2.
4. Guarnieri, M. (2012). "The age of vacuum tubes: Early devices and the rise of radio
communications". IEEE Ind. Electron. M. 6 (1): 41–43.
5. Cerofolini, Gianfranco (2009). Nanoscale Devices: Fabrication, Functionalization, and
Accessibility from the Macroscopic World. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 9.
6. Raymer, Michael G. (2009). The Silicon Web: Physics for the Internet Age. CRC Press. p. 365.
7. Winston, Brian (1998). Media Technology and Society: A History: From the Telegraph to the
Internet. Routledge.
8. Pugh, Emerson W., et. al.,(1991). IBM's 360 and early 370 systems. MIT Press. p. 34. 
9. Grant, Duncan Andrew; Gowar, John (1989). Power MOSFETS: theory and applications. Wiley.
p. 1.
10. Jack S. Kilby, Miniaturized Electronic Circuits, United States Patent Office, US Patent 3,138,743,
filed 6 February 1959, issued 23 June 1964.
11. "1960 – Metal Oxide Semiconductor (MOS) Transistor Demonstrated". The Silicon
Engine. Computer History Museum.
12. "1947: Invention of the Point-Contact Transistor". Computer History Museum.
13. "electronics | Devices, Facts, & History". Encyclopedia Britannica.
14. https://www.elprocus.com/know-about-brief-history-of-electronics-and-their-generations/.

Course Code Course Title Date Effective: Rev. No. Prepared by: Page No.:
???? Basic Electronics 1st Sem. S.Y. 2020-2021 00 A.F. Rombaoa/A.M. Villanueva 4 of 4