Dr.S.ALBERT ALEXANDER-SELECT- VIT 2 6.3 Bipolar Junction Transistor (BJT) ❖ A Bipolar Junction Transistor (BJT) is a three-terminal semiconductor device in which the operation depends on the interaction of both majority and minority carriers and hence, the name bipolar ❖ The BJT is analogous to a vacuum triode and is comparatively smaller in size ❖ It is used in amplifier and oscillator circuits, and as a switch in digital circuits ❖ It has wide applications in computers, satellites, and other modern communication systems
Dr.S.ALBERT ALEXANDER-SELECT- VIT 3 History ❖ 1904 to1947→ vacuum tube (J. A. Fleming) ❖ 1906 → control grid (Lee De Forest) ❖ vacuum diode + control grid→ first amplifier (the triode) ❖ Radio and television → tube industry ❖ Production: 1 million tubes(1922) to 100 million in (1937) ❖ 1930→ 4 element tetrode and 5 element pentode ❖ 1947→ Amplifying action of the first transistor (William Shockley, Walter H. Brattain & John Bardeen) at the Bell Telephone Laboratories
Dr.S.ALBERT ALEXANDER-SELECT- VIT 4 BJT – Construction ❖ The BJT consists of a silicon (or germanium) crystal in which a thin layer of N-type silicon is sandwiched between two layers of P-type silicon → PNP ❖ Alternatively, in an NPN transistor, a layer of P-type material is sandwiched between two layers of N-type material
Dr.S.ALBERT ALEXANDER-SELECT- VIT 5 BJT – Construction
Dr.S.ALBERT ALEXANDER-SELECT- VIT 6 BJT – Construction ❖ The three portions of the transistor are emitter, base, and collector, shown as E, B, and C, respectively ❖ The arrow on the emitter specifies the direction of current flow when the EB junction is forward biased ❖ The emitter is heavily doped so that it can inject a large number of charge carriers into the base ❖ The base is lightly doped and very thin ❖ It passes most of the injected charge carriers from the emitter into the collector ❖ The collector is moderately doped
Dr.S.ALBERT ALEXANDER-SELECT- VIT 7 Transistor biasing ❖ Usually the emitter-base junction is forward biased and the collector-base junction is reverse biased ❖ Due to the forward bias on the emitter-base junction, an emitter current flows through the base into the collector ❖ Though the collector-base junction is reverse biased, almost the entire emitter current flows through the collector circuit
Dr.S.ALBERT ALEXANDER-SELECT- VIT 8 Transistor Operation
Dr.S.ALBERT ALEXANDER-SELECT- VIT 9 Operation of NPN transistor
❖ The forward bias applied to the emitter base junction of an
NPN transistor causes a lot of electrons from the emitter region to cross over to the base region ❖ As the base is lightly doped with P-type impurity, the number of holes in the base region is very small ❖ Hence, the number of electrons that combine with holes in the P-type base region is also very small Dr.S.ALBERT ALEXANDER-SELECT- VIT 10 Operation of NPN transistor ❖ Hence, a few electrons combine with holes to constitute a base current IB ❖ The remaining electrons (more than 95%) cross over into the collector region to constitute a collector current IC ❖ Thus, the base and collector current summed up gives the emitter current, i.e., IE = – (IC + IB) ❖ In the external circuit of the NPN bipolar junction transistor, the magnitudes of the emitter current IE, the base current IB, and the collector current IC are related by IE = IC + IB
Dr.S.ALBERT ALEXANDER-SELECT- VIT 11 Operation of PNP transistor
❖ The forward bias applied to the emitter-base junction of a
PNP transistor causes a lot of holes from the emitter region to cross over to the base region as the base is lightly doped with N-type impurity ❖ The number of electrons in the base region is very small and hence, the number of holes combined with electrons in the N-type base region is also very small
Dr.S.ALBERT ALEXANDER-SELECT- VIT 12 Operation of PNP transistor ❖ Hence, a few holes combined with electrons to constitute a base current IB ❖ The remaining holes (more than 95%) cross over into the collector region to constitute a collector current IC ❖ Thus, the collector and base current when summed up gives the emitter current, i.e., IE = – (IC + IB) ❖ In the external circuit of the PNP bipolar junction transistor, the magnitudes of the emitter current IE, the base current IB and the collector current IC are related by IE = IC + IB ❖ This equation gives the fundamental relationship between the currents in a bipolar transistor circuit
Dr.S.ALBERT ALEXANDER-SELECT- VIT 13 Transistor Configurations ❖ When a transistor is to be connected in a circuit, one terminal is used as an input terminal, the other terminal is used as an output terminal, and the third terminal is common to the input and output ❖ Depending upon the input, output, and common terminals, a transistor can be connected in three configurations ❖ They are: (i) Common Base (CB) configuration, (ii) Common Emitter (CE) configuration, and (iii) Common Collector (CC) configuration ❖ CB Configuration: This is also called grounded-base configuration ❖ The emitter is the input terminal, the collector is the output terminal, and the base is the common terminal Dr.S.ALBERT ALEXANDER-SELECT- VIT 14 Transistor Configurations ❖ CE Configuration Also called grounded-emitter configuration. The base is the input terminal, the collector is the output terminal, and the emitter is the common terminal ❖ CC Configuration This is also called grounded-collector configuration. The base is the input terminal, the emitter is the output terminal, and the collector is the common terminal
Dr.S.ALBERT ALEXANDER-SELECT- VIT 15 CB Configuration
Output characteristics Input characteristics
Dr.S.ALBERT ALEXANDER-SELECT- VIT 16 CE Configuration
Output characteristics Input characteristics
Dr.S.ALBERT ALEXANDER-SELECT- VIT 17 CC Configuration
Output characteristics Input characteristics
Dr.S.ALBERT ALEXANDER-SELECT- VIT 18 Dr.S.ALBERT ALEXANDER-SELECT- VIT 19
