Next Previous Contents 3. This chapter gives very basics of CPU technology. If you have good technical background then you can skip this entire chapter. How Transistors work Microprocessors are essential to many of the products we use every day such as TVs, cars, radios, home appliances and of course, computers.
Transistors are the main components of microprocessors.
At their most basic level, transistors may seem simple. But their development actually required many years of painstaking research. Before transistors, computers relied on slow, inefficient vacuum tubes and mechanical switches to process information. Transistors are miniature electronic switches. They are the building blocks of the microprocessor which is the brain of the computer.