The emitter of transistor Q is connected to ground. That drop is equal to the collector-to-emitter voltage of a saturated transistor. Biasing and bias stability of transistor and FET amplifiers. The image represents a typical bipolar transistor in a circuit. A "bipolar transistor" has terminals labeled base, collector, and emitter. The two types of circuit draw upon different features of transistor behavior. The first commercial silicon transistor was produced by Texas Instruments in 1954. Flash memory works by modulating charge (electrons) stored within the gate of a MOS transistor. The output signal appears across ground and the collector of the transistor. In 1957, Shockley decided to end research on the silicon transistor. This is caused by current crowding during the snapback of the parasitic NPN transistor. In 1982, the insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) was introduced. Failure of the switching transistor is common. Shive's invention sparked Shockley's invention of the junction transistor. In the discussion below, focus is on the NPN bipolar transistor.