Abstract. If one wishes to teach some device electronics in schools it will have to be very limited. It is not productive to measure all the common emitter and common base characteristics of the bipolar transistor as required by at least one A-level syllabus. To do so wastes pupil time and leads to considerable confusion. Nor should the study be extended to cover for example all possible methods of biasing a common emitter amplifier. What is needed is a 'bare bones' approach, enough to give a first step towards understanding the subject. A case can be made for the study of an operational amplifier in electronic circuits, treating it as an ideal electronic 'device'. However, the author's personal feeling is that the study of a single active device such as the bipolar transistor provides a firm background from which students can extend their study of electronics and has the advantage in a physics course that from there it is a very short step to discuss a simple model for the internal mechanisms of semiconductor devices.

Print publication: Issue 6 (November 1984)