Score: 0
Junction Health
Time: 90
Tune the gate. Route carriers into the channel. Watch the heat!
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About Gate Charge

Charge the gate to switch silicon on and off in this free online transistor game about semiconductors and digital logic.

Gate Charge is a free online transistor game where you play the gate electrode of a MOSFET, the building block of every computer chip. You hold the gate voltage inside its sweet spot, dope silicon lanes with electrons and holes, form a p-n junction and route a flood of charge carriers through the channel while swatting away heat and crystal defects. This semiconductor game turns solid-state physics into an arcade challenge.

Every mechanic maps to real physics. Electrons are the negative carriers freed when phosphorus dopants donate an extra electron to the conduction band, creating n-type silicon. Holes are the positive carriers left behind by boron dopants in p-type silicon. Where the two regions meet, a p-n junction forms with a built-in depletion zone, the structure inside diodes, solar cells and transistors. Photons energetic enough to cross silicon's 1.12 electron-volt band gap knock loose electron-hole pairs, which is why a solar cell makes electricity from light. Phonons are quantized lattice vibrations, heat itself, and they scatter carriers. Avalanche spikes model breakdown, when overdrive accelerates carriers until they knock loose even more.

This matters because the transistor is the most-manufactured object in human history. Invented at Bell Labs in 1947, it replaced fragile vacuum tubes and shrank radios into pockets and computers into phones. A modern processor holds tens of billions of transistors switching billions of times per second, and solar cells, LEDs, camera sensors and touch screens all run on the same band-gap physics you just played.

Key Science Concepts

What You'll Learn

Grade Level: Middle School, High School

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How to play

  1. Route Carriers Electrons and holes drift toward the transistor. Let them reach the channel for current and points. Tap to boost them.
  2. Tune the Gate The gate voltage drifts with noise. Tap the HUD gauge to hold it in the green window or carriers get blocked.
  3. Dope the Wafer Tap dopant atoms to inject carriers. Dope both polarities once to form a p-n junction bonus.
  4. Swat Heat & Defects Phonons, crystal defects and avalanche spikes damage junction health. Tap them before they land.
  5. Harvest Photons Photons striking the wafer create electron-hole pairs. Guide them in for jackpot points.
  6. Bank Your Chip Survive 90 seconds, keep Junction Health alive and Exit anytime to bank your score.

Frequently asked questions

Is Gate Charge free to play?
Yes. Gate Charge is completely free to play in your browser. There is no download, install or account needed.
What grade level is Gate Charge for?
Gate Charge is designed for Middle School, High School students and works well as a classroom activity or homework.
Does Gate Charge work on phones and tablets?
Yes. Gate Charge runs in any modern browser on desktop computers, Chromebooks, tablets and phones in landscape mode.

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