Essential Guide to RF and Wireless, The

SEMICONDUCTORS

Materials and Devices

Solid State Technology

The world of wireless communications really began to take off with the development of semiconductor technology. Another name for semiconductor technology is solid state technology. The reason it is referred to as solid state is that semiconductors are a solid material. (It also helps distinguish it from liquid state technology, in which the electrical components are made out of chocolate milk.) The other type of technology, soon to be extinct, is gaseous technology. In gaseous technology, all the electrical stuff happens in a gas. An example of a gaseous product are the old vacuum tubes found in the television sets of the sixties. Many of those old tubes were actually RF amplifiers in ...