A semiconductor is very different from a conductor. In fact, a semiconductor is almost an insulator.

The only difference between semiconductor and insulator is energy levels. An insulator requires a great deal of energy (maybe 10 eV to brea! an electron free from an atom. A semiconductor requires only about 1 eV to free an electron. A conductor has some electrons free to move without any added energy. "hen a semiconductor is e#tremely cold, almost all electrons are held tightly by individual atoms. It is hard to ma!e them move through the material. "hen a semiconductor is heated, the heat energy !noc!s loose some of the electrons. These loose electrons can move through the material easily. The conductivity is higher. As more heat energy is added, more electrons brea! away from individual atoms, becoming free to move through the semiconductor. $igher tem%erature means greater conductivity. This is &'T true for conductors. (onductors already have %lenty of loose electrons. $igher tem%erature tends to go into these loose electrons. Adding energy ma!es the loose electrons move in less organi)ed %atterns. It becomes more difficult to control the direction of the electrons. This ma!es the conductor have less conductivity when tem%erature is higher. *o what else could ma!e the semiconductor conduct better+ The answer is, more charge carriers. "hereas the number of free electrons in a metal is constant the effect of heating a semiconductor frees additional electrons (and holes . -or silicon in this tem%erature range the effect of additional charge carriers outweighs the effect of additional vibrations, so the overall resistance will decrease with tem%erature.