Who makes the best transistors ?? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: MathWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2025, 03:18:25 pm
content: That's a board question but what do you people think ??

author: u666sa
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2025, 04:13:05 pm
content: Infineon, TI, Wolfspeed, NXP, ROHM, Diodes Inc, STMicroelectronics, ON Semiconductor.Vishay is crap.

author: floobydust
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2025, 04:35:11 pm
content: It's too broad a question I think.Best specs?Best datasheets?Best availability?Best quality?Toshiba makes the best BJT transistors in many regards, but the Japanese are addicted to the "latest and greatest" technology pursuit.So they continually obsolete really good parts, every year. You end up screwed in production, as a sole-sourced transistor is no longer manufactured.Toshiba discretes are a recurring nightmare once you design them in. I still miss the 2SC2240 lol.I think fewer and fewer designs actually require discretes to be high performance. The move is towards IC's with them having the optimized transistors.I blame the JFET for the downfall, over 10:1 spread in IDSSspec is ridiculous they haven't found a way to better that in say 50 yearsTektronix, HP found ways around it but people are lazy now and then the parts die out and become expensive boutique offerings due to low demand.

author: floobydust
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2025, 05:33:44 pm
content: Ahhh glory days of USSR semiconductors, a copy of Motorola, used for AM radio.Communist transistors are better done by china - the People's Transistor S8050, SS8050 all you really need comrade.

author: Benta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2025, 08:18:08 pm
content: Grandma.

author: David Hess
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2025, 10:00:58 pm
content: Linear Systems:https://www.linearsystems.com/products

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2025, 10:20:30 pm
content: Quote from: Benta on September 18, 2025, 08:18:08 pmI thought, she only made the transistors, for the RaspberryPI's?

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 18, 2025, 11:04:07 pm
content: Best low voltage, low on resistance standard FETs? Vishay, Infineon.Best high voltage, low figure-of-merit FETs? Probably Infineon or NXP/Nexperia.Best generic bipolar transistors? Almost everyone is "good". The market is pretty saturated. I tend to use MMBT3904/3906 in a lot of my designs where I just need a standard bipolar part, or PMBT2222AM for smaller applications (1x0.6mm DFN). These are made by at least Diodes Inc and Nexperia.Toshiba gets an honourable mention for low on-resistance N-ch and P-ch FETs in tiny packages, e.g. SSM6K208FE is a 20V, 0.1-ohm class N-channel FET in 1.6x1.6mm, and SSM6P816R is a dual P-channel 0.025ohm FET in 3x3mm. I've used both. In some applications, you can't afford large devices.

author: Benta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 19, 2025, 12:25:48 am
content: Quote from: MK14 on September 18, 2025, 10:20:30 pmGood one!

author: MathWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 19, 2025, 12:45:46 am
content: What about Fairchild Semi. ? I haven't used enough transistors to notice any difference brand to brand, or batch to batch. My main rule was usually, if it's cheap, it's good enough for me. But I'm starting to build a little collection of good parts.

author: Simmed
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 19, 2025, 01:23:35 am
content: dont you all wish digikey mouser etc BJT pages have extra 1/f freq + spectral noise data columns etc etc ? just click sort

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 19, 2025, 04:22:44 am
content: TSMC, there's a reason they have so many customers.

author: bdunham7
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 19, 2025, 04:47:40 am
content: Quote from: MathWizard on September 19, 2025, 12:45:46 amThat's OnSemi now, they acquired Fairchild. Definitely a trusted manufacturer. One that is overlooked is Central Semiconductor in NJ IIRC. They have good quality legacy parts and I, for one, am glad that they continue making that stuff.

author: elektryk
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: September 19, 2025, 08:05:10 am
content: Quote from: floobydust on September 18, 2025, 04:35:11 pmExactly.I really liked their BJTs in power amplifiers, 2SC5200/2SA1943 were quite nice as power transistors and 2SC4793/2SA1837 as drivers, but the second ones are now discontinued...There were also nice JFETs 2SK170, which are gone too...

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 19, 2025, 08:36:36 am
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on September 19, 2025, 04:22:44 amGreat bulk pricing. At $290 for an Nvidia 5090 die with 92.2 billion transistors, that's 3.145 x 10^-9 USD per transistor. Hard to beat that. Might be a little tricky to mount them onto a board though.

author: mawyatt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 20, 2025, 01:05:43 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on September 19, 2025, 08:36:36 amThe Nvidia 5090 die hosts the equivalent of ~ 77,000 i486 CPUs!!!Best

author: temperance
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 20, 2025, 01:50:05 pm
content: QuoteReliability wise or performance wise. The performance question has been answered.Reliability wise, I can say from experience in mass manufacturing that such a thing doesn't exist. From complex integrated circuits to simple tactile switches and anything in between, manufacturing defects are pretty common even from reputable manufacturers like Infineon, ST, Infineon, On Semi (fairchild), Omron, Molex, International rectifier, Vishay, Pulse, Osram, Wurth elektronik, NXP, Samsung, Toshiba, Renesas, Atmel,... just to name a few.The cost to rectify those problems is huge. Some components fail during burn in tests, while some manage to work a couple of years. The latter is extremely costly, and the damage done to your reputation, your customer and their customer's reputation is often beyond repairable.A €2.5 (Fairchild) IGBT can become a €400 IGBT if a product must be recalled. I've seen them all and after a while you start to understand that running a vegetable store, although less exciting, is not that bad.What are your stories with bad components?QuoteAnd, not taking inflation into account, only costs as much as a 486DX when I was a teenager.

author: UnijunctionTransistor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: September 20, 2025, 06:40:05 pm
content: Quote from: temperance on September 20, 2025, 01:50:05 pmBack when Sun Microsystems was still a major computer manufacturer, our company manufactured power supplies for many of their systems. Sun had this purchasing policy that for their high volume products, there must be at least two suppliers for most subassemblies. And Sun would divide the purchase orders 67% and 33% to each company, depending on the previous quarter quality and reliability metrics.Needless to say, the company I worked for always had the 33% share. And the largest contribution to our field failures were always the powertrain semiconductors.The power supply’s architecture and performance details had been VERY closely reviewed by Sun during the design and validation process for both companies. As such, we knew that our competitor had an extremely similar circuitry. How come then the reliability difference?Once I asked their Supplier Quality Engineer, an extremely knowledgeable individual, the following question: “Mike, without giving away any trade secrets, could you share one single reason why our competitor’s reliability is so much better than ours?” Without hesitation, he replied: “Japanese Semiconductors.”I know this is only an anecdotal story. But true.

author: floobydust
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 20, 2025, 06:51:17 pm
content: Power semiconductor modules - at a trade show I found out it's common for a companies to buy the dies and mount/package them.Powerexand I thoughtSemikron.e.g. purchase IGBT or MOSFET or diode dies from Infineon, do the mounting, many bonding wires and package etc.So a company's technology then is mostly in the better heat transfer from proprietary mounting. Marketing, specs too.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 20, 2025, 07:06:00 pm
content: Quote from: floobydust on September 18, 2025, 05:33:44 pmThey were always a piece of crap, like everything coming from that country.The quality depended on when they made it, because they had to work on the three month plan. First two months the outputs were 10% of the nominal, last month everyone worked overtime otherwise you are off to the gulag. And quality went nosedive.