UNIT-2

TRANSISTORS AND AMPLIFIERS

Topics

v Bipolar junction transistor- CB, CE, CC

configuration and characteristics-Biasing circuits.

v Class A, B and C amplifiers.

v Field effect transistor-Configuration and

characteristic of FET amplifier.

v SCR, Diac, Triac.

v UJT-Characteristics and simple applications-

Switching transistors.

v Concept of feedback-Negative feedback-

Application in temperature and motor speed
control.
Construction of PNP and NPN transistors.

Ø 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.
Ø 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.
Ø 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
JE.
Ø The other junction is between the base and the
collector, and is called collector-base junction
 Ø The transistor can be constructed using one of the
five basic techniques and accordingly they are
classified as
v Grown type
v Alloy type
v Electro chemically etched type
v Diffusion type
v Epitaxial type

current components in BJT

v The holes crossing the emitter base junction J and

reaching the collector base junction Jc constitutes
collector current I Not all the holes crossing the emitter
base junction J reach collector base junction J because
some of them combine with the electrons in the n-type
base.

v Since base width is very small, most of holes cross the

collector base junction Jc and very few recombine,
constituting the base current .

v The emitter current E consists of hole current l (holes

crossing from emitter base) and electron current
(electrons crossing from base into the emitter)

v If doping is more, conductivity is more and if doping is

less, conductivity is less.

v In a commercial transistor the doping of the emitter is

made much larger than the doping of the base.

v When emitter is open circuited, E = 0 and hence I =0

In such condition, the base and collector act as a
reverse biased diode, and the collector current I
equals the reverse saturation current L.
Common Base Characteristics

v It is the curve between input current E (emitter

current) and input voltage V (emitter-base voltage) at
constant collector-base voltage VC8. The emitter current
is taken along Y-axis and emitter base voltage along X-
axis.
Common- Emitter Configuration

v input is applied between base and emitter, and output

is taken from collector and emitter. Here, emitter of the
transistor is common to both, input and output circuits,
and hence the name common emitter configuration.

v Common emitter configurations for both npn and pnp

transistors .
Breakdown characteristics

v At high collector junction voltage, there is the

possibility of voltage breakdown in the transistor.
v Two types of breakdown are possible: Avalanche
breakdown and punch through or reach through.

Construction and Characteristics of JFET

Construction of JFET

v A small bar of extrinsic semiconductor material, n type

is taken and at its two ends, two ohmic contacts are
made which are the drain and source terminals of FET.
v Heavily doped electrodes of p type material form p-n
junctions on each side of the bar.
v The thin region between the two p gates is called the
channel. Since this channel is in the n type bar, the FET
is known as n-channel JFET.

v The electrons enter the channel through the terminal

called source and leave through the terminal called
drain.
v The terminals taken out from heavily doped
electrodes of p type material are called gates.
v These electrodes are connected together and only
one terminal is taken out, which is called gate.

Construction of p-channel JFET

v The device could be made of p type bar with two n

type gates then this will be p-channel JFET.
v The principle of working of n-channel JFET and p-
channel JFET is similar; the only difference being
that in n-channel JFET the current is carried by
electrons while in p-channel JFET, it is carried by
holes.

V-I Characteristics of JFET

Drain VI Characteristics for n-channel JFET

v The curves represent relationship between the

drain current D and drain to source voltage VDS
for different values of VGS.
 From this characteristics we observe following points

1. VGS and Vds both = 0

2. Self pinch off at no bias (VGS 0)
3. VGS with negative bias
4. Breakdown Region
5. Ohmic and Saturation regions
6. Cutoff

Drain V-I characteristics for p-channel JFET

v In a p-channel JFET the source is positive with

respect to the drain.
v Here the source is the source of holes which flow
through the channel to the drain.
v The pinch-off is achieved by making the source to
gate voltage, V negative (i.e. VGS positive) there
by reverse biasing the pn junction diode formed
by the channel and the gate.
Transfer Characteristics for n-channel JFET

v The curves represents relationship between the

drain current Id and gate to source voltage VGS.

From this characteristics we observe following points

 a. The relationship between the drain current Id and
gate to source voltage VGS is non-linear. This
relationship is defined by Shockley s equation

b.

2.
c. A point A at the bottom end of the curve on the VGS-
axis represents VGS and point B at the top end of the
curve on the Id axis represents T (maximum drain
current at VGS = 0). Thus, this curve shows the
operating limits of a JFET.

SILICON CONTROLLED RECTIFIER:

v It is a four layered PNPN device and is a prominent

member of thyristor family.
v It consists of three diodes connected back to back with
gate connection or two complementary transistors
connected back to back.
v It is widely used as switching device in power control
applications. It can switch ON for variable length of
time and delivers selected amount of power to load.
v It can control loads, by switching the current OFF and
ON up to many thousand times a second.
v Hence it possesses advantage of RHEOSTAT and a
switch with none of their disadvantages.
Construction:

As shown in fig. it is a four layered three terminal device,

layers being alternately P-type and N-type silicon. Junctions
are marked J1,J2,J3 Whereas terminals are anode(A),
cathode(C) and gate(G). The gate terminal is connected to
inner P-type layer and it controls the firing or switching of
SCR.
Biasing:

v The biasing of SCR is shown in fig.1 The junction J1

and J3 become forward biased while J2 is reverse
biased.
It is seen that now junction J1 and J3 become reverse
biased and only J2 is forward biased.

SYMBOL FOR SCR

BIASING FOR SCR

Operation of SCR
.
v In SCR a load is connected in series with anode and
is kept potential with respect to cathode when the
gate is open i.e., is applied at the gate.
v Under this condition, junctions J1 and J3 are
forward biased and junction J2 is reverse biased.
Due to this, flows through RL and hence the SCR is
cutoff.
v SCR starts conducting and is said to be in ON state.
The SCR offers very small forward resistance so
that it allows infinitely high current. The current
flowing through the SCR is limited only by the
anode voltage and external resistance.
v If the battery connections of the applied voltage are
reversed the junction J1 and J3 are reverse biased.
J2 is forward biased. If the applied reverse voltage
is small the SCR is OFF and hence no current flows
through the device.

VI Characteristics of SCR

v The volt-ampere characteristics of a SCR for IG = 0.

1. As the applied anode to cathode voltage is increased
above zero, very small current flows through the device,
under this condition the SCR is off. It will be continued
until, the applied voltage reaches the forward break over
voltage (point A)

2. If the anode-cathode (applied) voltage exceeds the

break over voltage it conducts heavily the SCR turns ON
and anode to cathode voltage decreases quickly to a point
B because, under this condition the SCR offers very low
resistance hence it drops very low voltage across it.
3. At this stage the SCR allows more current to flow
through it. The amplitude of the current is depending
upon the supply voltage and load resistance connected in
the circuit.
4. The current corresponding to the point is called the
holding current (IH). It can be defined as the minimum
value of anode current required to keep the SCR in ON
State. If the SCR falls below his holding current the SCR
turns OFF.
5.If the value of the gate current I is increased above
zero(IG > 0)the SCR turns ON even at lower break over
voltage.
6. The region lying between the points OA is called
forward blocking region. In this region SCR is OFF The
region lying between the points BC is called forward
conduction region.
7. Once the SCR is switched ON then the gate looses all
the control. So SCR cannot be turned OFF by varying the
gate voltage. It is possible only by reducing the applied
voltage.
To obtain the “reverse characteristics” the following
points are followed.
1. In this case the SCR is reverse biased, if the applied
reverse, voltage is increased above zero, hence a very
small current flows through the SCR. Under this condition
the SCR is OFF, it continues till the applied reverse
voltage reaches breakdown voltage.
2. As the applied reverse voltage is increased above the
breakdown voltage, the avalanche breakdown occurs
hence SCR starts conducting in the reverse direction. It is
shown in curve DE. Suppose the applied voltage is
increased to a very high value, the device may get
damaged.

Firing and Turning Off Mechanism

Firing

Usually SCR is operated with an anode voltage slightly

less than VBO (forward break over voltage) and is
triggered into conduction by applying low power gate
pulse. Once the SCR is switched on, gate has no control
on device current.

Turning Off

SCR remains ON, even when triggering pulse is removed.

This ability of SCR to remain in the ON state even when
the gate current is removed is called latching . SCR can
be turned off either by any one of the method.
a) anode current interruption
b) reversing polarity of anode - cathode voltage
c) reducing current through SCR below holding current H

Applications

Main application is that it is a power control device, other

common applications are
a) relay controls, b) phase control, c) static switches, d)
regulated power supplies, e) heater controls, 1)
inverters, and g) motor controls.
TRIAC

v It is a 5-layer 3 terminal bidirectional device

which can be triggered ON by applying either
positive or negative voltages irrespective of the
polarity of the voltage across the terminal anodes
.
v It behaves like two SCR s, connected in parallel
and in opposite direction to each other.
v Because of the inverse parallel connection the
two terminals cannot be identified as anode or
cathode.
v The anode and gate voltage applied in either
direction will fire (ON)a triac because they would
fire at least one of the two SCR S which are in
opposite directions.

Construction

v It has three terminals A A and G. The gate G is

closer to anode A
v It has six doped regions. It is nothing but two
inverse parallel connected SCR S with common gate
terminal.
Operation

V-I Characteristics of TRIAC

Applications (TRIAC)
v TRIAC is a bidirectional device hence it is used in many
industrial applications such as
(i) Phase control ,heater control
 (ii) Light Dimmer control, speed control of
motors.
(iii) It is also used to control ac power to a
load by switching ON and OFF
(iv) light control
(v) motor speed control
(vi) as static switch to turn on and off ac
power. By adjusting R, the point at
which conduction commences can be
varied.

DIAC

v A diac is a two terminal, three layer bidirectional device

which can be switched from its OFF state to ON state
for either polarity of applied voltage.
v The two leads are connected to P-region of silicon chip
separated by an N-region.
v MT1and MT2are two main terminals by which the
structure of the diac is interchangeable.
v It is like a transistor with the following basic
differences.
(i) There is no terminal attached to the base layer
 (ii) The doping concentrations are identical (unlike a
bipolar transistor) to give the device symmetrical
properties.

Operation
v when Positive or negative voltage is applied
across the main terminals of a diac, only a small
leakage current IBO will flow through the device.
v If the applied voltage is increased, the leakage
current will continue to flow until the voltage
reaches the break over voltage VBO.
v At this point, avalanche breakdown occurs at the
reverse-biased junction it may be J1or
J2depending upon the supply connected between
MT1& MT2 the device exhibits negative
resistance
v ie current through the device increases with the
decreasing values of applied voltage.
v The voltage across the device then drops to
break back voltage V
Applications of DIAC

Some of the circuit applications of diac are

• Light dimmer circuits.

• Heat control circuits.
• Universal motor speed control.
 THE UNIJIJNCTION TRANSISTOR

v Another device whose construction is similar to that of

the FET is indicated in Fig. 14-31.
v A bar of high-resistivity n-type silicon of typical
dimensions 8 X 10 X 35 mils, called the base B, has
attached to it at opposite ends two ohmic contacts, Bi
and B2.
v A 3-mil aluminum wire, called the emitter B,
 is alloyed to the base to form a p-n rectifying junction.
v This device was originally described in the literature as
the double-base diode, but is now commercially
available under the designation uni junction transistor
(UJT).
v The standard symbol for this device is shown in Fig. 14-
3 lb. Note that the emitter arrow is inclined and points
toward B1 whereas the ohmic contacts B1 and B2 are
brought out at right angles to the line which represents
the base.
v The principal constructional difference between the FET
and the T is that the gate surface of the former is much
larger than the emitter junction of the latter.
v The main operational difference between the two
devices is that the FET is normally operated with the
gate junction reverse-biased, whereas the useful
behavior of the UJT occurs when the emitter is forward-
biased.
v As usually employed, a fixed interbase potential V is
applied between El and B2.
v The most important characteristic of the UJT is that of
the input diode between E and El.
v If B2 is open-circuited so that 1 = 0, then the input
volt-ampere relationship is that of the usual p-n
junction diode as given by Eq. (6-31).
v In Fig. 14 32 the input current-voltage characteristics
are plotted for l = 0 and also for fixed values of
interbase voltage VBB.
v Each of the latter curves is seen to have a negative-
resistance characteristic. A qualitative explanation of
the physical origin of the negative resistance is given in
Ref. 14.
v The principal application of the L is as a switch which
allows the rapid discharge of a capacitor (Ref. 13).
THE FEEDBACK CONCEPT

v In the preceding section we summarize the properties

of four basic amplifier type.
v In each one of these circuits we may sample the output
voltage or

Fig. 17-4 (a) A transresistance amplifier is represented by

a Norton s equivalent in its input circuit and a equivalent
in its output circuit. (b) Equivalent circuit of a common-
emitter transistor transresistance amplifier.
v For this circuit Current by means of a suitable
sampling network and apply this signal to the input
through a feedback two-port network, as shown in
Fig. 17-5.
v At the input the feedback signal is combined with the
external (source) signal through a mixer network
and is fed into the amplifier proper.
FEED BACK NETWORK.
v This block in Fig. 17-5 is usually a passive two-port
network which may contain resistors, capacitors, and
inductors. Very often it is simply a resistive
configuration.
SAMPLING NETWORK
v Several sampling blocks are shown in Fig. 17-6. In
Fig. 17-6a the output voltage is sampled by
connecting the feedback network in shunt across the
output.
v In this case it is desirable that the input impedance
of the feedback network be much greater than RL as
not to load the output of the amplifier.