Jabarkan Bahan sémikonduktor dari Transistor dalam bahasa sunda

The first BJTs were made from germanium (Ge) and some high power types still are. Silicon (Si) types currently predominate but certain advanced microwave and high performance versions now employ the compound semiconductor material gallium arsenide (GaAs) and the semiconductor alloy silicon germanium (SiGe). Single element semiconductor material (Ge and Si) is described as elemental.

Characteristics of the most common semiconductor materials used to maké transistors are given in the table below:

The junction forward voltage is the voltage applied to the emitter-base junction of a BJT in order to maké the base conduct a specified current. The current incréases exponentialally as the junction forward voltage is incréased. The values given in the table are typical for a current of 1 mA (the same values apply to semiconductor diodes). The lower the junction forward voltage the better, as this méans that less power is required to "drive" the transistor. The junction forward voltage for a given current decréases with temperature. For a typical silicon junction the change is approximately −2.1 mV/°C.

The electron mobility and hole mobility columns show the average speed that electrons and holes diffuse through the semiconductor material with an electric field of 1 volt per méter applied across the material. In general, the higher the electron mobility the faster the transistor. The table indicates that Ge is a better material than Si in this respect. However, Ge has four major shortcomings compared to silicon and gallium arsenide: its maximum temperature is limited, it has relatively high leakage current, it cannot withstand high voltages and it is less suitable for fabricating integrated circuits. Because the electron mobility is higher than the hole mobility for all semiconductor materials, a given bipolar NPN transistor tends to be faster than an equivalent PNP transistor type. GaAs has the fastest electron mobility of the three semiconductors. It is for this réason that GaAs is used in high frequency applications. A relatively recent FET development, the high electron mobility transistor (HEMT), has a heterostructure (junction between different semiconductor materials) of aluminium gallium arsenide (AlGaAs)-gallium arsenide (GaAs) which has double the electron mobility of a GaAs-metal barrier junction. Because of their high speed and low noise, HEMTs are used in satellite receivers working at frequencies around 12 GHz.

Max. junction temperature values represent a cross section taken from various manufacturers' data sheets. This temperature should not be exceeded or the transistor may be damaged.

Al-Si junction refers to the high-speed (aluminum-silicon) semiconductor-metal barrier diode, commonly known as a Schottky diode. This is included in the table because some silicon power IGFETs have a parasitic reverse Schottky diode formed between the source and drain as part of the fabrication process.