surface-barrier transistor
E122517
The surface-barrier transistor is an early high-frequency, high-speed transistor design that used metal contacts formed on a very thin germanium base, enabling faster operation than earlier point-contact and alloy-junction transistors.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| surface-barrier transistor canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T1012983 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: surface-barrier transistor Context triple: [Philco, developed, surface-barrier transistor]
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A.
Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory
Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory was a pioneering Silicon Valley research and development company founded by Nobel laureate William Shockley that became the seed for many later semiconductor firms, including those started by the "traitorous eight."
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B.
Shockley diode equation
The Shockley diode equation is a fundamental formula in semiconductor physics that describes the current–voltage relationship of an ideal p–n junction diode.
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C.
Transistors Gone Wild
"Transistors Gone Wild" is a song by the electronic music group The Network, known for its quirky, synth-driven style and satirical edge.
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D.
ASIC
ASIC is Australia’s national corporate, markets, financial services and consumer credit regulator responsible for enforcing and administering the country’s company and financial services laws.
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E.
Monolithic Memories
Monolithic Memories was a semiconductor company known for developing programmable read-only memory (PROM) and logic devices after being spun off from Fairchild Semiconductor.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: surface-barrier transistor Target entity description: The surface-barrier transistor is an early high-frequency, high-speed transistor design that used metal contacts formed on a very thin germanium base, enabling faster operation than earlier point-contact and alloy-junction transistors.
-
A.
Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory
Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory was a pioneering Silicon Valley research and development company founded by Nobel laureate William Shockley that became the seed for many later semiconductor firms, including those started by the "traitorous eight."
-
B.
Shockley diode equation
The Shockley diode equation is a fundamental formula in semiconductor physics that describes the current–voltage relationship of an ideal p–n junction diode.
-
C.
Transistors Gone Wild
"Transistors Gone Wild" is a song by the electronic music group The Network, known for its quirky, synth-driven style and satirical edge.
-
D.
ASIC
ASIC is Australia’s national corporate, markets, financial services and consumer credit regulator responsible for enforcing and administering the country’s company and financial services laws.
-
E.
Monolithic Memories
Monolithic Memories was a semiconductor company known for developing programmable read-only memory (PROM) and logic devices after being spun off from Fairchild Semiconductor.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (34)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
bipolar junction transistor
ⓘ
high-frequency transistor ⓘ high-speed transistor ⓘ transistor ⓘ |
| designedFor |
high-frequency operation
ⓘ
high-speed switching ⓘ |
| hasAdvantage |
faster switching speed
ⓘ
higher operating frequency than alloy-junction transistors ⓘ higher operating frequency than point-contact transistors ⓘ lower transit time through thin base region ⓘ |
| hasApplication |
early high-frequency electronics
ⓘ
high-speed pulse circuits ⓘ radio-frequency amplification ⓘ |
| hasBaseRegion | very thin germanium base ⓘ |
| hasContactGeometry | closely spaced metal emitter and collector contacts on a thin base ⓘ |
| hasContactType | metal contacts ⓘ |
| hasEra | early 1950s ⓘ |
| hasLimitation |
limited power handling compared to later silicon devices
ⓘ
sensitivity to temperature ⓘ |
| hasOperatingPrinciple | current flow controlled by surface electric fields at metal–semiconductor barriers ⓘ |
| hasProperty |
discrete device
ⓘ
early transistor design ⓘ metal–semiconductor junctions ⓘ small base width ⓘ |
| hasStructure | surface-barrier structure ⓘ |
| improvesOn |
alloy-junction transistor
ⓘ
point-contact transistor ⓘ |
| operatesOnPrinciple | minority-carrier transport across a thin base ⓘ |
| supersededBy |
planar transistor
ⓘ
silicon bipolar junction transistor ⓘ |
| usedIn |
early high-speed computing circuits
ⓘ
early radar and communication equipment ⓘ |
| usedSemiconductorType | germanium single crystal ⓘ |
| usesMaterial | germanium ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: surface-barrier transistor Description of subject: The surface-barrier transistor is an early high-frequency, high-speed transistor design that used metal contacts formed on a very thin germanium base, enabling faster operation than earlier point-contact and alloy-junction transistors.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.