Muhammad Asim Butt

asim.butt@umt.edu.pk

1
Surah Al-Hujurat
 Course Information
• Instructor: Muhammad Asim Butt
– asim.butt@umt.edu.pk

• Course Web Page

– https://lms.umt.edu.pk

• Book:
– Fundamentals of Microelectronics, 2nd edition. By
Behzad Razavi
 Relationship to other Modules
• Pre-requisites
– Circuit Analysis,
– Electrical Network Analysis

• Dependent Courses:
• Electronic System Design
• Digital Electronics
• Power Electronics
• Industrial Electronics
 Course Description
• The topics covered include modeling of Semiconductor
devices, basic microelectronic circuit analysis and
design, physical electronics of semiconductor junction
and MOS devices, development of circuit models, and
understanding the uses and limitations of various
models.
• The course uses incremental and large-signal
techniques to analyze and design bipolar and field
effect transistor circuits, with examples chosen from
digital circuits.
• Operational amplifiers are also treated as black box
circuit element.
 Grading Policy

• Quizzes 10 %
• Assignments 10 %
• Mid Term 30 %
• Final exam 50 %
 Assessments
• A minimum of Four assessments are required.

• These assessments will include quizzes and

assignments.

• Due to rampant copying in assignments, every

assignment will be followed by a quiz from that
assignment and the quiz score will be the assignment
score.

• A compensatory quiz will be conducted for low

performers.
 Assessments …
• No quiz will be less than TEN minutes and more than
Twenty minutes duration.

• Mid-term exam will be of exactly ONE HOUR duration

and will be conducted in WEEK 8. There will be no
lectures or lab sessions in the Mid-term Week.

• Final exam will be of 120 minutes duration.

• Attendance is mandatory, Students having below 80%

attendance will be awarded SA.
 Course Learning Objectives
• Upon Completion of the course, the students will be able to:-
– Understand distinguishing characteristics of BJTs and MOSFETS
– Understand basic electronic devices e.g., diode, transistor
construction and characteristics
– DC biasing of transistors
– solve simple circuits using diodes, transistors , MOSFETS
– load line analysis of diode, transistors and MOSFETS
– solving problems related to amplification using transistors and
MOSFETS.
– working of a transistor and MOSFET as a switch for digital
circuits
– Able to design electronic circuits to meet given specs
 Course Contents
• BASIC PHYSICS OF SEMICONDUCTORS
• DIODE MODELS AND CIRCUITS
• PHYSICS OF BIPOLAR TRANSISTORS
• BIPOLAR AMPLIFIERS
• PHYSICS OF MOS TRANSISTORS
• CMOS AMPLIFIERS
• OPERATIONAL AMPLIFIER AS A BLACK BOX
 Chapter 1 Why Microelectronics?

• 1.1 Electronics versus Microelectronics

• 1.2 Example of Electronic System:

Cellular Telephone

• 1.3 Analog versus Digital

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 Cellular Technology

• An important example of microelectronics.

• Microelectronics exist in black boxes that process the
received and transmitted voice signals.
CH1 Why Microelectronics? 12
 Frequency Up-conversion

• Voice is “up-converted” by multiplying two sinusoids.

• When multiplying two sinusoids in time domain, their
spectra are convolved in frequency domain.
CH1 Why Microelectronics? 13
 Transmitter

• Two frequencies are multiplied and

radiated by an antenna in (a).
• A power amplifier is added in (b) to boost
the signal.
CH1 Why Microelectronics? 14
 Receiver

• High frequency is translated to DC by multiplying

by fC.
• A low-noise amplifier is needed for signal
boosting without excessive noise.
CH1 Why Microelectronics? 15
 Digital or Analog?

• X1(t) is operating at 100Mb/s and X2(t) is

operating at 1Gb/s.
• A digital signal operating at very high
frequency is very “analog”.
CH1 Why Microelectronics? 16
 Chapter 2
Basic Physics of Semiconductors
• 2.1 Semiconductor materials and
their properties

• 2.2 PN-junction diodes

• 2.3 Reverse Breakdown

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Basic Physics of Semiconductors
OUTLINE
• Basic Semiconductor Physics
– Semiconductors
– Intrinsic (undoped) silicon
– Doping
– Carrier concentrations

Reading: Chapter 2.1

 What is a Semiconductor?
• Low resistivity => “conductor”
• High resistivity => “insulator”
• Intermediate resistivity => “semiconductor”
– conductivity lies between that of conductors and insulators
– generally crystalline in structure for IC devices
• In recent years, however, non-crystalline semiconductors have
become commercially very important

polycrystalline amorphous crystalline

Semiconductor Materials

Phosphorus
(P)
Gallium
(Ga)
 Silicon
• Atomic density: 5 x 1022 atoms/cm3
• Si has four valence electrons. Therefore, it can form
covalent bonds with four of its nearest neighbors.
• When temperature goes up, electrons can become
free to move about the Si lattice.
 Electronic Properties of Si
 Silicon is a semiconductor material.
– Pure Si has a relatively high electrical resistivity at room temperature.

 There are 2 types of mobile charge-carriers in Si:

– Conduction electrons are negatively charged;
– Holes are positively charged.

 The concentration
(#/cm3) of conduction electrons & holes in a
semiconductor can be modulated in several ways:
1. by adding special impurity atoms ( dopants )
2. by applying an electric field
3. by changing the temperature
4. by irradiation
 Electron-Hole Pair Generation
• When a conduction electron is thermally generated,
a “hole” is also generated.
• A hole is associated with a positive charge, and is
free to move about the Si lattice as well.
Carrier Concentrations in Intrinsic Si
• The “band-gap energy” Eg is the amount of energy
needed to remove an electron from a covalent bond.
• The concentration of conduction electrons in intrinsic
silicon, ni, depends exponentially on Eg and the
absolute temperature (T):
 Eg
ni  5.2 10 T
15 3/ 2
exp electrons / cm3
2kT

ni  11010 electrons / cm3 at 300K

ni  11015 electrons / cm3 at 600K
 Doping (N type)
• Si can be “doped” with other elements to change its
electrical properties.
• For example, if Si is doped with phosphorus (P), each
P atom can contribute a conduction electron, so that
the Si lattice has more electrons than holes, i.e. it
becomes “N type”:
Notation:
n = conduction electron
concentration
 Doping (P type)
• If Si is doped with Boron (B), each B atom can
contribute a hole, so that the Si lattice has more
holes than electrons, i.e. it becomes “P type”:
Notation:
p = hole concentration
Summary of Charge Carriers
Electron and Hole Concentrations
• Under thermal equilibrium conditions, the product
of the conduction-electron density and the hole
density is ALWAYS equal to the square of ni:
np  ni
2

N-type material P-type material

n  ND p  NA
2 2
n n
p i n i
ND NA
 Terminology
donor: impurity atom that increases n
acceptor: impurity atom that increases p

N-type material: contains more electrons than holes

P-type material: contains more holes than electrons

majority carrier: the most abundant carrier

minority carrier: the least abundant carrier

intrinsic semiconductor: n = p = ni
extrinsic semiconductor: doped semiconductor
 Summary
• The band gap energy is the energy required to free an
electron from a covalent bond.
– Eg for Si at 300K = 1.12eV
• In a pure Si crystal, conduction electrons and holes are
formed in pairs.
– Holes can be considered as positively charged mobile particles
which exist inside a semiconductor.
– Both holes and electrons can conduct current.
• Substitutional dopants in Si:
– Group-V elements (donors) contribute conduction electrons
– Group-III elements (acceptors) contribute holes
– Very low ionization energies (<50 meV)