BJT

Monday, September 15, 2014

2:45 PM

A transistor is a three terminal device that is

formed by sandwiching a p material between two
materials or an n material between two p materials.

BJT Relationships

For CB amplifiers, the input is connected to the

emitter and the output is taken from the collector:

For CE amplifiers, the input is connected to the base

and the output is taken from the collector:
PNP

NPN

The base is thin and very lightly doped compared

to the emitter which is heavily doped and the
collector which is moderately doped and is the
largest region. The transistor has two p-n
junctions; emitter junction (BE) and collector
junction (CB).
DC Operation of the Common-Emitter NPN
Transistor
The transistor can be operated in three
configurations; common base, common emitter
and common collector modes. "Common"
indicates which terminal is common to both the
input and output side and is at ac ground. The
common emitter configuration is shown below. It
is a base bias circuit which means that a fixed
value of base current is set up.
VCC

RC
VCB
V BB

R B VB

IC

VC

The collector current for a CE amplifier can be

written as :

is usually very small and can be ignored:

Operating the Transistor as a Switch

For the transistor to operate as a switch, must be
changing from (open switch) to
(closed

Temperature Dependence
Since the transistor is a semiconductor with very
precise doping, variations in temperature can result
in unwanted changes in the output.

VCE
IB

VBE

VE
IE

In the absence of any biasing, the transistor is in

equilibrium as the depletion region at both
junctions prevents the flow of electrons through
the device. In this situation, the transistor is said to
be in Cutoff mode.

As soon as base voltage, , becomes greater than

the barrier potential,
, the emitter diode (BE)
becomes forward-biased. Some electrons in the
emitter now have enough kinetic energy to cross
the emitter junction into the base. This represents
an injection of minority carriers into the base. The
base is thin and lightly doped, so few electrons
will combine with holes and exit the base terminal
as valence electrons through base resistor,
,
forming the base current, .
The rest of the electrons in the base has to get to
the collector. For an isolated p-n junction, when
the collector diode (BC) is forward biased,
electrons (majority) will be moving from the
collector to the base. But now electrons must move
from the base to the collector. The energy level of
the conduction band of the collector must be
lowered for this to happen. This means that the
collector must be connected to the positive
terminal ( ) of voltage source in order to
reverse-bias the collector diode; i.e.

PNP Transistor
In the case of a PNP transistor, the polarity of the
biasing voltages applied must be reversed. This
means that
should be applied to the collector
terminal and
to the base terminal.
Notice that at all times the emitter terminal is
connected to the positive terminal of the supply.
This means that, instead of applying a negative
voltage to the collector we can apply a positive
voltage to the emitter. For this reason, PNP
transistors are normally drawn vertically flipped.

Reverse Saturation Current

Recall that for CB transistors
.
is a result of the movement of minority carries
and is temperature dependent. For every
rise in
temperature, it has been found experimentally that
doubles. This can be written as :

Base Emitter Voltage

The base-emitter junction is just a diode and the
depletion region gets thinner as the temperature
increases. For every
rise in temperature,
decreases by
.
For different temperatures,
.
The Current Gain,
The dc current gain of a transistor is not constant; it
depends on (Early Effect) and the junction
temperature as shown in the graph below.

increases with up to a particular before it

begins to decrease.
also increases with
temperature.
Due to unavoidable manufacturing variations, even
at a particular collector current and operating
temperature,
of transistors of the same type can

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switch) and vice versa in response to the switching

signal.
For the transistor to act as an open switch,
.
For this to happen,
.
For the transistor to operate as a closed switch,
. This happens when
. We can
calculate

. The minimum base

current that will produce the collector current that

can saturate the transistor is:
. So
any current above

will ensure saturation.

A large base current can be produced by increasing

or reducing .
When operated as a switch, the transistor is
analogous to a voltage source; there's either no
voltage across the transistor (closed) or the entire
supply voltage is across the transistor (open).

VCC

VCC
VC VCC

Open
Switch

Cutoff

VC 0
Closed
Switch

Saturation

Transistor as an Amplifier
Transistors are mainly used to amplify ac signals.
Proper dc biasing of a transistor is essential in
producing an amplified and undistorted replica of
the input signal. The transistor acts like a current
controlled device in the linear region. As long as
the transistor is in the linear region, changes in the
base current by the ac signal will correspond to
magnified changes in the collector current.
If proper dc biasing is not done, the transistor
might enter either the cutoff or saturation regions

lowered for this to happen. This means that the

collector must be connected to the positive
terminal ( ) of voltage source in order to
reverse-bias the collector diode; i.e.
(from
). In this way a, path is setup
from the emitter to the collector allowing minority
carries to flow.

The electrons flowing from the base through the

collector form the collector current, . But recall
that the base already had thermally generated
electrons as its minority carrier which are also
diffusing into the collector. These form the reverse
saturation current and is denoted as,
.
can
be measured by removing the base supply voltage
and leaving only
. So,
is the reverse
collector current with the base open.
The total collector current is:
,
where
is a measure of the fraction of electrons
that reach the collector from the emitter.
Increasing the supply voltage,
, or reducing the
base resistor, , will give more electrons in
emitter the energy required to cross the emitter
junction. More electrons will fall into holes in the
base per unit time, causing a larger . Also, more
electrons will be reaching the collector per unit
time; hence, a larger . So an increase in
corresponds to an increase in . The transistor is
now said to be in the linear region as
, where
is called the dc current
gain of the transistor.

temperature.
Due to unavoidable manufacturing variations, even
at a particular collector current and operating
temperature,
of transistors of the same type can
vary over a wide range (
and
).
This is usually written in the ratio form
and usually called the current
gain spread.

Maximum Transistor Ratings

The maximum power that a transistor can dissipate
is denoted as
(usually quoted at
)
where

While in the active region, a

transistor behaves like a dependent
current source.
The diagram shows a dc transistor
model.

VCC
IC

I B

IE
IB

is the power curve (hyperbola).

To protect the transistor from damaging,

.
The area on the output characteristic curve that is
bounded by
, the power curve,
and the
saturation line defines the region of operation of the
transistor. This is represented by the white area
below the power curve.

Other important ratings include:

: Maximum reverse collector-base voltage
: Maximum reverse emitter-base voltage
:
:
In the linear region, the base current controls the
collector current. This means that the base current
controls the current that can be supplied by
. In
other words, the transistor is acting like a current
controller source. If is kept constant, ideally
will not change.

The power rating of the transistor has a negative

temperature dependence (derating factor). This
means that at higher temperatures,
becomes

Ideally, if
is increased while is kept
constant, there will be no increase in (controlled
by ), instead the increase in
will be dropped
across the collector emitter terminals, causing
to increase.

Thermal Runaway
One of the major adverse effects of the increase in
temperature on transistors is that the collector
current will increase. This will cause the transistor to
heat up cause the collector current to continuously
increase until the transistor is damaged by the large
heat.

As
increases, the width of the collector
junction increases causing the base to become
thinner. This causes less electrons to recombine
with holes, thereby forcing almost all of the
emitter electrons to the collector. This effect is
called the Early Effect and causes
to increase.
For this reason, the relationship between
and
is not perfectly linear.
The maximum reverse-bias voltage,
, that the
collector diode can withstand before breakdown is
called
or the breakdown voltage (BV).

base current by the ac signal will correspond to

magnified changes in the collector current.
If proper dc biasing is not done, the transistor
might enter either the cutoff or saturation regions
as the input ac signal is changing. The transistor
current will not be respond to these changes in a
linear fashion, thereby causing the output signal to
be distorted.

lower and need to be dropped to protect the

transistor. For this reason, large current transistors
are fitted with heat sinks.

In the linear region, as is increasing, is

increasing. The voltage drop across the collector
resistor, , is also increasing. In turn, the

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VCC

For the circuit shown :

Since
, the voltage
across the emitter resistance, ,
is
. This means that
an equivalent resistance at the base
that will have identical voltage
drop to
is
. In other
words, the emitter resistance seen
from the base is not
but
.
Similarly,
will appear from the
emitter as
.

RB

RC

RE

Transistor Troubleshooting
The forward resistances (
and
) must be
low.
The reverse resistances (
and
) must be
very high.
The collector emitter resistance should be very
high.

resistor, , is also increasing. In turn, the

collector voltage, , is decreasing since
.
will continue to increase as increases until
the supply voltage,
, is no longer capable of
producing a larger . The maximum current that
can supply is called the saturation current,
. The transistor is now in the saturation
region and
increase in
.

no longer holds. Further

will not correspond to an increase in

The collector diode has a

small internal resistance, ,
associated with it that will
always have some voltage
dropped across it. The
voltage drop across
is
more significant in power
transistors that have to deal
with large currents.
In lower power transistors,
the voltage drop across is
around
.
When

VCC

ro
I B

IB

rC

IC

IE

, most of the supply voltage will

dropped across
and a little across . For this
reason,
is never at .
When
has become small enough, the collector
junction becomes forward-biased (
).
Characteristic Curves

Common-Emitter Configuration
Input Characteristics
The emitter diode
serves as the input
point, meaning that
the characteristic
curve is that of a
diode. Notice that
decreases as
increases.
Output Characteristics
The transistor variables that are changing in the
CE configuration are the collector current, , and
the voltage across its terminals,
.
Power dissipated by transistor:
.

Notice that the curves in the linear region have a

positive slope. This is due to the Early effect. The
slope implies that the collector is not acting as an
current source. This is due to resistance associated

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current source. This is due to resistance associated

with the collector diode that is finite.

Common-Base Configuration
Here, the base terminal is grounded. Input is
applied to the emitter terminal.
Input Characteristics
The emitter diode defines the input characteristics
curve. It is the emitter current vs. the base-emitter
voltage. As
increases, fewer electrons
recombine in the base and so increases.

Output Characteristics
The transistor variables that are changing in the
CB configuration are the collector current, , and
the collector-base voltage,
, where
.
In the CB case,
Power dissipated by transistor:
.

Notice that since the input signal is applied to the

emitter terminal and
, there's no current
gain.
Notice also that the curves are flat. This implies
that the current source is very close to ideal.

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