BEEE102L BASIC ELECTRICAL

AND ELECTRONICS
ENGINEERING

Dr.S.ALBERT ALEXANDER
SCHOOL OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING
[email protected]

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Module 6
Semiconductor Devices and Applications
Characteristics:
❖ PN Junction diode

❖ Zener diode

❖ BJT

❖ MOSFET

Applications:
❖ Rectifier

❖ Voltage regulator

❖ Operational amplifier

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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

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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

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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

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BJT – Construction

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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

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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

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Transistor Operation

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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
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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

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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

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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

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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
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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

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CB Configuration

Output characteristics
Input characteristics

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CE Configuration

Output characteristics
Input characteristics

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CC Configuration

Output characteristics
Input characteristics

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