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Germanium is a semiconductor having an indirect bandgap, as is crystalline silicon. Zone refining techniques have led to the production of crystalline germanium for semiconductors that has an impurity of only one part in 10 10, [35] making it one of the purest materials ever obtained. [36]
A semiconductor is a material that is between the conductor and insulator in ability to conduct electical current. [1] In many cases their conducting properties may be altered in useful ways by introducing impurities ("doping") into the crystal structure. When two differently doped regions exist in the same crystal, a semiconductor junction is ...
Silicon–germanium. SiGe (/ ˈsɪɡiː / or / ˈsaɪdʒiː /), or silicon–germanium, is an alloy with any molar ratio of silicon and germanium, i.e. with a molecular formula of the form Si 1−x Ge x. It is commonly used as a semiconductor material in integrated circuits (ICs) for heterojunction bipolar transistors or as a strain -inducing ...
A compound semiconductor is a semiconductor compound composed of chemical elements of at least two different species. These semiconductors form for example in periodic table groups 13–15 (old groups III–V), for example of elements from the Boron group (old group III, boron, aluminium, gallium, indium) and from group 15 (old group V, nitrogen, phosphorus, arsenic, antimony, bismuth).
Up until the late 1950s, however, germanium remained the dominant semiconductor material for transistors and other semiconductor devices. Germanium was initially considered the more effective semiconductor material, as it was able to demonstrate better performance due to higher carrier mobility.
A semiconductor device is an electronic component that relies on the electronic properties of a semiconductor material (primarily silicon, germanium, and gallium arsenide, as well as organic semiconductors) for its function. Its conductivity lies between conductors and insulators. Semiconductor devices have replaced vacuum tubes in most ...
This scheme begins with two letters: the first gives the semiconductor type (A for germanium, B for silicon, and C for materials like GaAs); the second letter denotes the intended use (A for diode, C for general-purpose transistor, etc.). A three-digit sequence number (or one letter and two digits, for industrial types) follows.
In the semiconductor industry, the term wafer appeared in the 1950s to describe a thin round slice of semiconductor material, typically germanium or silicon. The round shape characteristic of these wafers comes from single-crystal ingots usually produced using the Czochralski method. Silicon wafers were first introduced in the 1940s. [2] [3]