TRANSISTORS

Bipolar Junction Transistors

 The BJT Transistor
Bipolar junction transistor is a combination of two
junction diodes and consists of either a thin layer of P-
type semi conductor sandwiched between two N- type
semiconductors or thin layer of N-type semiconductor
sandwiched between two P-type semiconductors . The
central point is known as the BASE and is very thin.
See diagrams of diodes connected back to back to make
transistors.
 Transistor Construction (BJT)
• Penetration of indium into Ge P type alloy.
N type Ge
The sketch illustrates the construction of alloyed junction transistor. Indium alloy
Two indium pellets are placed on a small slice of Ge and heated until bead
indium melts, indium has lower melting point than Ge. But Ge
becomes hot enough for diffusion to take place, since indium is a emitter collector
trivalent material P type material is formed in Ge under the pellets.
The smaller is the emitter and the bigger is the collector pellet. While
the Ge forms the base of the transistor. It will be seen that the
transistor is in effect two diodes with the base forming a common
element. Each junction now on its own will be known as a normal Indium bead
rectifier junction. base
TRANSISTOR ACTION
• Transistor action
For a NPN transistor one of N region is the emitter –is of low resistivity material with
heavy impurity doping. The emitter is the source of charge carries in the transistor .
The central P region is known as the base region of the transistor and is a relatively pure
semi conductor of high resistivity .
The base region is the control(region) electrode of the transistor .
The other region of the transistor is known as the collector region, this has a lower
conductivity than the emitter region and is the region which the mobile charge carriers are
finally collected. The direction of the arrow on the emitter region in the circuit symbol
indicates the direction of the conventional current flow through the device.

IN a PNP transistor, the two extreme P regions are the emitter and the collector, while the
central N region is the base. The rule for doping the region of the NPN applies to the PNP.
TRANSISTOR ACTION
Ice

The common Emitter configuration

N +
Ibe
P
Base VCC
++
supply
N

Electron
flow
Transistor action
• The base region is very thin( its thickness can be as little as 0. 0005mm) and electrons
( minority charge carriers) diffuse through it, some of these electrons combine with other
holes ( which are the majority the base region) and disappear.
• The supply of holes is replenished in the form of base current (Ibe) from the external
circuit. When electrons reach the collector junction they come under the influence of the
positive potential connected to the collector region.
• The electrons are quickly swept in the collector region by this positive potential where the
are collected. In operation it seen as 98% - 99% of the current leaving the emitter arrive at
the collector, it is therefore important in the bipolar transistor that the emitter region is
heavily doped so that it readily emit charge carriers into the base region. Equal the base
region must be very lightly doped so that very few charge recombination will occur.
• Also the base is very thin to allow charge carriers leaving the emitter to reach the collector
as quickly as possible.
Transistor action
• In both transistor types the junction between the emitter and the base is
known as the emitter junction and that between collector and base is
known as the as the collector junction. The above circuit is called
common emitter or common emitter connection, since the emitter is
common to the input ( base) and the output (collector) supplies.
• Under normal operation condition the emitter junction is forward biased
and charge carriers are emitted by the low resistivity emitter region into
the high resistivity base region. The collector region is reverse biased
and the collector is much higher than the base circuit voltage. The
majority charge carriers (electrons) which leave the emitter become
minority charge carriers when they arrive in the base region.
Bipolar Transistor Configurations
• With 3 terminals assigned to a BJT or a bipolar transistor, it becomes possible for us to configure these devices
in 3 unique ways in a circuit depending on the application requirement. In each of these configurations we
have one input option, one output option, where the emitter acts like a common terminal for both the options.
Each of these configurations have the ability to produce unique output results depending on the various
parameters used in the configuration layout.
• Following are the 3 bipolar transistor configurations with their own unique output characteristics and
attributes:
• Common Emitter Configuration – shows both Current and Voltage Gain.

• Common Base Configuration – shows Voltage Gain without any Current Gain.

• Common Collector Configuration – shows Current Gain but no Voltage Gain

Common-emitter (CE) configuration: the emitter is the common terminal between the input and output sides

• In the Common Emitter or grounded emitter configuration, the input signal is placed across the base and the
emitter, while the output is extracted from across the collector and the emitter as shown below. This sort of
arrangement is one of the widely used circuit for transistor based amplifiers and it signifies the “normal”
approach to bipolar transistor network. The common emitter amplifier construction delivers the very best
current and power gain among the 3 bipolar transistor designs. This is largely because the input impedance is
SMALL since it is attached to a forward biased PN-junction, while the output impedance is LARGE since it
is obtained from a reverse biased PN-junction
The common Emitter configuration
• In this form of configuration, the current moving from the transistor needs to be the same
to the currents coming in into the transistor in the form of emitter current can be presented
as Ie = Ic + Ib.
• Since the load resistance ( RL ) is joined in series with the collector, for a common emitter
transistor configuration the current gain can be pretty large simply because it is the ratio of
Ic/Ib. A transistors current gain is represented through the Greek symbol Beta, ( ß ).
• Because the emitter current for a common emitter configuration is characterized by Ie = Ic
+ Ib, the ratio of Ic/Ie is known as Alpha, symbolized by the Greek symbol of a. Take
note: that the value of Alpha will at all times be lower than unity.
• Considering that the electrical relationship between these 3 currents, Ib, Ic and Ie depends
upon the physical structure of the transistor alone, a slightest of variation in the base
current ( Ib ), may lead to a significantly larger improvement in the collector current ( Ic ).
The common Emitter configuration
• Subsequently, little changes in current moving within the base may as
a result regulate the current across the emitter-collector circuit.
• Usually, Beta may carry a value between 20 and 200 for the majority
of general purpose transistors.
• Therefore when a transistor possesses a Beta value of say 100,
signifies that one electron will move through the base terminal for
every 100 electrons moving across the emitter-collector terminal.
• Simply by merging the expressions for both Alpha, a and Beta, ß the
numerical relationship between these variables and consequently the
current gain of the transistor could be expressed as:
The common Emitter configuration
The common Emitter configuration
• Where: “Ic” is the current moving towards the collector terminal, “Ib”
is the current going towards the base terminal and “Ie” is the current
flowing out from the emitter terminal.
• Therefore to sum up the whole thing. This sort of bipolar transistor
configuration includes a higher input impedance, current and power
gain compared to that of the common base configuration nevertheless
voltage gain can be a lot lower. The common emitter configuration is
an inverting amplifier circuit. Meaning, the ensuing output signal
carries a 180 degree phase-shift in relation to input voltage signal.
The common Base configuration
• In a common base mode which is also called grounded base, the base terminal of
the BJT is used as the common terminal for both input and output of the
configuration.
• The input signal is fed across the base and emitter of the BJT, and the resulting
output signal is derived across the base and the collector terminals of the BJT. The
base signal is always referenced to the emitter terminal and its potential level.
• The diagram for this configuration can be seen in the following diagram.
• Here the input current applied to the emitter happens to be relatively larger since
this current is the sum of the base current and collector current. On account of
this, the output current at the collector becomes less compared to the input emitter
current, providing a net current gain of unity to this type of mode of operation. To
be precise, in a common base configuration the input signal gets attenuated.
The common Base configuration
The common base configuration
• A common base BJT circuit behaves like a non-inverting amplifier circuit,
due to the fact that its output signals is always in-phase with the input
signal, meaning the output precisely replicates the input signal's polarity
without changing its attributes.
• This configuration is normally avoided since it creates a rather high voltage
gain characteristics, wherein the input characteristic can be compared to a
forward biased diode and the output characteristics to an illuminated LED.
Additionally this kind of bipolar transistor arrangement features a high ratio
of output to input resistance or more notably “load” resistance ( RL ) to
“input” resistance ( Rin ) presenting it a value of “Resistance Gain”. As a
result the voltage gain ( Av ) for a common base configuration is presented
as:
Common Base Voltage Gain

In which: Ic/Ie is the current gain, alpha ( a ) and RL/Rin

is the resistance gain.
The common base circuit is commonly exclusively used
in single stage amplifier circuits for instance microphone
pre-amplifier or radio frequency ( Rƒ ) amplifiers
because of its excellent high frequency processing.
The Common Collector (CC) Configuration
• In the Common Collector or grounded collector configuration, the
collector now becomes common reference with regards to the supply.
The input signal is hooked up straight to the base, whereas the output
is extracted through the emitter load as indicated in the diagram. This
kind of arrangement is usually recognized as a Voltage Follower or
Emitter Follower circuit.
• The common collector, or emitter follower construction is incredibly
helpful for impedance matching applications due to its extremely high
input impedance, approximately thousands of Ohms while featuring a
comparatively lower output impedance.
The Common Collector Transistor Circuit
The common (cc) collector configuration
• The common emitter arrangement features a current gain roughly
equivalent to the ß value of the transistor itself.
• In the common collector configuration the load resistance can be seen in
series with the emitter which means its current will be equivalent to that
of the emitter current.
• Since the emitter current is the combined result of the collector AND the
base current put together,
• we find that the load resistance in this particular type of transistor setup
has both the collector current and the input current of the base streaming
through it. In that case the current gain of the circuit is furnished by the
equation:
The Common Collector Current Gain
The common (cc) collector configuration

• This kind of bipolar transistor configuration is a non-inverting circuit

wherein the voltages Vin and Vout tend to be “in-phase”. It carries a
voltage gain which is at all times lower than “1” (unity).
• The load resistance of the common collector transistor accepts equally the
base and collector currents offering a substantial current gain (just like the
common emitter construction) as a result, it exhibits excellent current
amplification with only a small amount of voltage gain.
• We can at this point review the different relationships between the specific
transistor DC currents flowing via each terminal and its DC current gains
discussed above, within the following table.
Relationship between DC Currents and Gains
Bipolar Transistor Summary
• To sum up, the working nature of bipolar transistors in each one of
the above circuit designs can be quite diverse and delivers distinct
circuit characteristics in terms of input impedance, output impedance
and gain, which may be voltage gain, current gain or power gain and
all these are described in the table listed below through the general
attributes of the various transistor configurations:.
Bipolar Transistor Configurations &
characteristics