01/11/2019 Transistor Regions of Operation - Tutorialspoint

Transistor Regions of Operation

The DC supply is provided for the operation of a transistor. This DC supply is given to the two PN
junctions of a transistor which influences the actions of majority carriers in these emitter and collector
junctions.
The junctions are forward biased and reverse biased based on our requirement. Forward biased is
the condition where a positive voltage is applied to the p-type and negative voltage is applied to the n-
type material. Reverse biased is the condition where a positive voltage is applied to the n-type and
negative voltage is applied to the p-type material.

Transistor biasing

The supply of suitable external dc voltage is called as biasing. Either forward or reverse biasing is
done to the emitter and collector junctions of the transistor. These biasing methods make the transistor
circuit to work in four kinds of regions such as Active region, Saturation region, Cutoff region and
Inverse active region s
seelld
doom
muus
seed
d . This is understood by having a look at the following table.

EMITTER JUNCTION COLLECTOR JUNCTION REGION OF OPERATION

Forward biased Forward biased Saturation region

Forward biased Reverse biased Active region

Reverse biased Forward biased Inverse active region

Reverse biased Reverse biased Cutoff region

Among these regions, Inverse active region, which is just the inverse of active region, is not suitable
for any applications and hence not used.

Active region

This is the region in which transistors have many applications. This is also called as linear region. A
transistor while in this region, acts better as an Amplifier.

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01/11/2019 Transistor Regions of Operation - Tutorialspoint

This region lies between saturation and cutoff. The transistor operates in active region when the
emitter junction is forward biased and collector junction is reverse biased. In the active state, collector
current is β times the base current, i.e.,

I
ICC
=
= β
βIIB
B

Where,

I
ICC
= collector current

β
β = current amplification factor

I
IBB
= base current

Saturation region

This is the region in which transistor tends to behave as a closed switch. The transistor has the effect
of its collector and Emitter being shorted. The collector and Emitter currents are maximum in this
mode of operation.

The figure below shows a transistor working in saturation region.

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01/11/2019 Transistor Regions of Operation - Tutorialspoint

The transistor operates in saturation region when both the emitter and collector junctions are forward
biased. As it is understood that, in the saturation region the transistor tends to behave as a closed
switch, we can say that,

I
ICC
=
= I
IEE

Where I
ICC
= collector current and I
IEE
= emitter current.

Cutoff region

This is the region in which transistor tends to behave as an open switch. The transistor has the effect
of its collector and base being opened. The collector, emitter and base currents are all zero in this
mode of operation.

The following figure shows a transistor working in cutoff region.

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01/11/2019 Transistor Regions of Operation - Tutorialspoint

The transistor operates in cutoff region when both the emitter and collector junctions are reverse
biased. As in cutoff region, the collector current, emitter current and base currents are nil, we can write
as

I
ICC
=
= I
IEE
=
= I
IBB
=
= 0
0

Where I
ICC
= collector current, I
IEE
= emitter current, and I
IBB
= base current.

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