Editing Transistor (section)

===Advantages===
The key advantages that have allowed transistors to replace vacuum tubes in most applications are
* No cathode heater (which produces the characteristic orange glow of tubes), reducing power consumption, eliminating delay as tube heaters warm up, and immune from [[cathode poisoning]] and depletion.
* Very small size and weight, reducing equipment size.
* Large numbers of extremely small transistors can be manufactured as a single [[integrated circuit]].
* Low operating voltages compatible with batteries of only a few cells.
* Circuits with greater energy efficiency are usually possible. For low-power applications (for example, voltage amplification) in particular, energy consumption can be very much less than for tubes.
* Complementary devices available, providing design flexibility including complementary-symmetry circuits, not possible with vacuum tubes.
* Very low sensitivity to mechanical shock and vibration, providing physical ruggedness and virtually eliminating shock-induced spurious signals (for example, [[microphonics]] in audio applications).
* Not susceptible to breakage of a glass envelope, leakage, outgassing, and other physical damage.