Bipolar Junction Transistor 2.1 Introduction to BUT In 1951, William Schockley invented the first junction transistor, a semiconductor device that can amplify electronic signals such as radio and television signals. It is essential ingredient of every electronic circuit; from the simplest amplifier or oscillator to the most claborate digital computer. Thus a proper understanding of transistor is very important. Before transistor, the amlification was achieved by using vacuum tubes as an amplifier. Nowadays vacuum tubes are replaced by transistors because of following advantages of transistors. ‘= Low operating voltage. © Higher efficiency. ‘© Small size and ruggedness and © Does not require any filament power ‘Transistor is a three terminal device : Base, emitter and collector, can be operated in three configurations common base, common emitter and common collector. According to configuration it can be used for voltage as well as current amplification. The input signal of a small amplitude is applied at the base to get the magnified output signal at the collector. Thus provides an amplification of the signal. The amplification in the transistor is achieved by passing input current signal from a region of low resistance to a region of high resistance. This concept of transfer of resistance has given the name TRANSfer-resISTOR (TRANSISTOR). There are two types of transistors : Unipolar junction transistor and bipolar junction transistor, In unipolar transistor the current conduction is only due to one type of carriers, majority carriers. The current conduction in bipolar transistor is because of bath the types of charge carriers, holes and electrons. Hence this is called Bipolar junction transistor, hereafter referred to as BJT. The BJTs are of two types mpm type * pp type (2-1)Electronic Devices and Circuits 2-2 Bipolar Junction Transistor 2.4.1 Structure of Bipolar Junction Transistor (BJT) When a transistor is formed by sandwiching a single p-region between two n-regions, as shown in the Fig. 2.1 (a), it is an n-p-n type transistor. The p-n-p type transistor has a single n region between two p-regions, as shown in Fig. 2.1(b). Emitter Collector B dbase Be (a) mp-n () pp Fig. 2.1 Bipolar transistor construction The middle region of each transistor type is called the base of the transistor. This region is very thin and lightly doped. The remaining two regions are called emitter and collector. The emitter and collector are heavily doped. But the doping level in emitter is slightly greater than that of collector and the collector region-area is slightly more than that of emitter. Fig. 2.2 (a) and (b) shows the symbols of npn and pnp transistors. DO Collector ~~ Coleetor Base Base (@)npn (>) pp Fig. 2.2 Standard transistor symbols ‘A transistor has two p-n junctions. One junction is between the emitter and the base, and is called the emitter base junction, or simply the emitter junction Jy. The other junction is between the base and the collector, and is called collector-base junction, or simply collector junction J,. Thus transistor is like two pn junction diodes connected back-to-back as shown in the Fig. 23 (a) and (b). S44 pre gop 4-3 B B (a) n-pen transistor (b) p-t-p transistor Fig. 2.3 Two-diode transistor analogy However, we cannot replace transistor by back to back connected diodes because of the following reasons :Electronic Devices and uits 2-3 Bipolar Junction Transistor 1. Relative doping levels in the base, emitter and collector junctions must be satisfied to work that device as a transistor, Two normal pn junction diodes cannot satisfy this requirement. 2. Ina transistor, emitter to base junction is forward biased while base to collector junction is reversed biased. But due to diffusion process almost entire emitter current reaches to collector and base current is negligibly small. Thus due to diffusion, device works as a transistor. While in back to back connected diodes there are two separate diodes, one forward biased and one reverse biased and diffusion cannot take place. Thus maximum series current which can flow is reverse saturation current of a reverse biased diode. Hence the combination of back to back connected diodes cannot be used as transistor. Another important point is that, the emitter area in the transistor is considerably smaller than the collector area. This is because the collector region has to handle more power than the emitter and more surface area is required for heat dissipation. 2.1.2 Unbiased Transistor ‘An unbiased transistor means a transistor with no external voltage (biasing) is applied. Obviously, there will be no current flowing from any of the transistor leads. Since transistor is like two pn junction diodes connected back to back, there are depletion regions at both the junctions, emitter junction and collector junction, as shown in the Fig. 24. Depletion region at Je Je Fig. 2.4 Unbiased npn transistor During diffusion process, depletion region penetrates more deeply into the lightly doped side in order to include an equal number of impurity atoms in the each side of the junction. As shown in the Fig. 2.4, depletion region at emitter junction penetrates less in the heavily doped emitter and extends more in the base region. Similarly, depletion region at collector junction penetrates less in the heavily doped collector and extends more in the base region. As collector is slightly less doped than the emitter, the depletion layer width at the collector junction is more than the depletion layer width at the emitter junction,