THE IMPORTANCE AND APPLICATION OF SEMICONDUCTOR TO ELECTRONICS

ENGINEERING

WRITTEN BY

TERRIGBADE, TAIWO AZEEZ

ET20190104004

HND1

SUBMITTED TO

LECTURER IN CHARGE

ENGR (DR) D.O FOLARIN

COURSE: ELECTRICAL MATERIAL SCIENCE (EEC 315)

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL ELECTRONICS ENGINEERING/TECHNOLOGY

SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY

THE FEDERAL POLYTECHNIC EDE, EDE OSUN STATE

November, 20 2020.
ABSTRACT

Semiconductors and electronic circuits have been causing a leap that cannot be ignore. Thanks to
semiconductors, there isn’t anyone on earth who has never used semiconductors before in one way
or another. Examples of such semiconductor element are silicon and germanium.
In this project, we will learn about semiconductors and how they work and its application to the
field of Electronic Engineering. The write up also covers also mention some component and
devices which resulted in creating the innovations use today, such as diode, transistor, radio
television, car, air conditioner, computers, mobile phones, and all modern communication devices
and many household appliances.

1.0 INTRODUCTION
Semiconductors are solid crystalline substances that tend to have greater electrical conductivity

than insulators, but less than good conductors. The valence band of a semiconductor is full

similarly to that of an insulator, but the band gap is much smaller (about 1 eV compared to about 5

eV). In fact, the band gap in several semiconductors is so small that electrons are easily able to be

thermally excited into the conduction band.

This means that the electrical conductivity of many semiconductors is strongly reliant on

temperature. Even though conductivity is not dependent only on the number of free electrons,

materials with less than one free electron per million atoms will not easily be able to conduct

electricity. To have practical uses for semiconductors the conductivity must be greatly increased

and raising the temperature is not a very reliable way to achieve this goal. However, it is

accomplished by doping (adding a very small amount of other atoms in with the semiconductor),

which increases conductivity by adding either electrons or holes to a semiconductor.

By putting together n-doped and p-doped semiconductors diodes and transistors can be created. In

these devices, voltage and current can be varied in more complicated way than directed by Ohm’s

Law. To build a practical circuit it is important to have switches (on/off switches are related to

binary code) that can control current, voltage, and resistance. Semiconductors can easily be

manipulated to become conducting or insulating materials and can change their conductive

properties very quickly. This allows for the possibility of building millions of tiny semiconducting

“switches” on a single chip.

2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW

A semiconductor is a substance, usually a solid chemical element or compound, that can conduct

electricity under some conditions but not others, making it a good medium for the control of

electrical current. Its conductance varies depending on the current or voltage applied to a control

electrode, or on the intensity of irradiation by infrared (IR), visible light, ultraviolet (UV), or X

rays VK Mehta and Rohit Mehta (2000).

Fig2.1. A piece of silicon

Semiconductor is any of a class of crystalline solids intermediate in electrical conductivity between

a conductor and an insulator. Semiconductors are employed in the manufacture of various kinds of

electronic devices, including diodes, transistors, and integrated circuits. Such devices have found

wide application because of their compactness, reliability, power efficiency, and low cost

Zitzewitz, Paul W., Ph.D, et al. As discrete components, they have found use in power devices,

optical sensors, and light emitters, including solid-state lasers. They have a wide range of current-

and voltage-handling capabilities and, more important, lend themselves to integration into complex

but readily manufacturable microelectronic circuits. They are, and will be in the foreseeable future,

the key elements for the majority of electronic systems, serving communications, signal

processing, computing, and control applications in both the consumer and industrial markets.
Atoms consist of a dense, positively charged nucleus surrounded by a cloud of negatively charged

electrons. The electron in an atom can possess only certain amounts of energy(quantized). Due to

this, electrons can occupy only certain allowed energy levels. Usually the electrons in an atom

occupy the lowest possible energy levels available to them. This condition is referred to as the

ground state. An atom can sometimes absorb outside energy, which if the energy is sufficient

enough, one of the atom’s electrons can move to a higher energy level. The atom is then in its

excited state. The electron may absorb so much energy that it is no longer bound to the atom and is

now free. When identical atoms are far apart they have the same energy levels and wave functions,

but as the atoms are brought closer together, their wave functions overlap. Because no two

electrons in the same system can occupy the same state, the energy level in an atom is altered by

the influence of the electric field of another atom. This causes energy levels to split. Adding a few

more nearby atoms causes further splitting and when many atoms interact, the energy levels are so

closely spaced that they can be represented as energy bands. The bands are separated by values of

energy that no electron can possess. These energies are called forbidden gaps. For atoms in the

ground state, the lower energy levels are completely full. The outermost band that holds electrons

is called the valence band.

Fig.2.2 Energy Band

The lowest band that is not filled to capacity with electrons is called the conduction band.

Electrical conduction in solids explained in terms of these energy bands and forbidden gaps is

called the band theory of solids. This band theory explains why solids fall into three categories:

conductors, insulators, and semiconductors.

Semiconductors have a smaller forbidden gap than insulators and therefore need less energy for

their electrons to jump into the conduction band. Some electrons reach the conduction band on

their own as a result of their thermal kinetic energy and even more make it when an electric field is

applied to the material. Unlike metals, as the temperature increases the electron movement and

conductivity increases. An atom from which an electron has broken free from its valence band is

missing an electron is said to contain a hole. A hole is an empty energy level in the valence band.

The atom now has a net positive charge. If an electron breaks free from another atom, it can land

on the hole and become bound to an atom once again. When the hole and a free electron

recombine, their opposite charges cancel each other. The electron, however, has left behind

another hole on its previous atom. The negatively charged, free electrons move in one direction

and the positively charged holes move in the opposite direction.

3.0 METHODOLOGY

The specific properties of a semiconductor depend on the impurities, or dopants, added to it. An N-

type semiconductor carries current mainly in the form of negatively-charged electrons, in a manner

similar to the conduction of current in a wire. A P-type semiconductor carries current

predominantly as electron deficiencies called holes. A hole has a positive electric charge, equal

and opposite to the charge on an electron. In a semiconductor material, the flow of holes occurs in

a direction opposite to the flow of electrons.

Elemental semiconductors include antimony, arsenic, boron, carbon, germanium, selenium,

silicon, sulfur, and tellurium. Silicon is the best-known of these, forming the basis of most

integrated circuits (ICs). Common semiconductor compounds include gallium arsenide, indium

antimonide, and the oxides of most metals. Of these, gallium arsenide (GaAs) is widely used in

low-noise, high-gain, weak-signal amplifying devices.

A semiconductor device can perform the function of a vacuum tube having hundreds of times its

volume. A single integrated circuit (IC), such as a microprocessor chip, can do the work of a set of

vacuum tubes that would fill a large building and require its own electric generating plant.

Fig.3.1 IC Made from Semiconductor

Semiconductors are used extensively in solid-state electronic devices and computers. The majority

of materials for these applications are based on doped silicon. An important property of p-n

junctions is that they allow electron flow only from the n side to the p side. Such one-way devices

are called diodes. If a positive voltage (also called a forward bias) is applied that lowers the energy

barrier between n and p, then the electrons in the conduction band on the n side can flow across the

junction (and holes can flow from p to n ). A reverse bias, however, raises the height of the barrier

and increases the charge separation at the junction, impeding any flow of electrons from p to n

Serway, R and Jerry S. 1997.

In solid materials, some electrons exist in two bands: conduction bands and valence band. The

electrons that exist in conduction band move easily within the material without leaving their

crystals. The electrons in the valence band are confined and do not conduct the current, as they are

closer to the nucleus than free electrons.

On one hand, in conductors, there is no separation between the valence band and the conduction

band. Electrons in the two bands are intertwined so that the valence electrons move easily between

the two bands. On the other hand, the insulating materials have a large separation between the two

bands. Last but not least, the separation between the two bands in semiconductors is average. Thus,

valence electrons can jump to the conduction band if they acquire an amount of the energy that

helps them pass the separator, giving the semiconductor the ability to deliver electricity.

3.1 Electronics Devices

Diodes have several important applications in electronics. The power supplied by most electrical

utilities is typically alternating current (AC); that is, the direction of current flow switches back

and forth with a frequency of sixty cycles per second. However, many electronic devices require a

steady flow of current in one direction (direct current or DC). Since a diode only allows current to
flow through it in one direction, it can be combined with a capacitor to convert AC input to DC

output. For half the AC cycle, the diode passes current and the capacitor is charged up. During the

other half of the cycle, the diode blocks any current from the line, but current is provided to the

circuit by the capacitor. Diodes applied in this way are referred to as rectifiers.

The by far most important application of semiconductors is as logic gates and transistors in

computers. Logic gates, such as OR and AND gates, take advantage of the one-way nature of

diodes to compare the presence or absence of current at different locations in a circuit. More

complex solid-state transistors are composed of npn or pnp junctions. The device geometry is

slightly more complicated than that observed in a diode, but the result is materials that allow for

the generation of the zeros and ones required for the binary logic used by computers.

3.1.1 DIODE APPLICATIONS

Half-Wave Rectifier: It is used to produce a direct current (DC). However, it has intermittent

intensity at half a cycle, and it disappears at the other half

Full-Wave Rectifier: It converts alternating current (AC) to DC. It is used in many battery-

operated applications and in the solar cell, as it can only generate continuous currents.

Varactor diode: This device is used to tune the frequency of the resonance of an electric circuit.

Also, it is used to produce a phase-locked loop, which is a control system that generates an output

signal whose phase is related to the phase of an input signal. It is used in radio, television, cell

phones, and various transmitters.

Photodiode: In the photodiode, silicon absorbs the energy of the photons of the incident light to

create additional pairs of electrons and gaps, causing a significant change in current intensity. It is
used in solar cells, light sensor in smartphones, digital cameras, street lighting lamps, as well as

shopping malls doors.

3.1.2 OPTOELECTRONIC DEVICES

Optoelectronic materials are a special class of semiconductors that can either convert electrical

energy into light or absorb light and convert it into electrical energy. Light-emitting diodes

(LEDs), for example, are commonly used for information display and in automotive interior

lighting applications. In an LED, a forward bias applied across the junction moves electrons in the

conduction band over holes in the valence band. The electron and hole combine at the junction,

and the energy created by this process is conserved via the emission of light (Figure 3a). The

wavelength of emitted light will depend on the band gap of the material; larger band gaps lead to

shorter wavelengths of light. Only certain kinds of semiconductors, called direct gap

semiconductors, exhibit this behavior. GaAs is an example of a direct gap semiconductor used in

these applications. Silicon is an indirect gap material, and electrons and holes combine with the

generation of heat instead of light.

Fig. 3.2 Light Emitting Diode

4.0 MATHEMATICAL EQUATION

The current in a diode is given by the diode current equation

I = (eV/h
I V – 1) (2.1)

o T
where, I = Diode current
Io = Reverse saturation current

V = Diode voltage

h = Semiconductor constant

= 1 for Ge

= 2 for Si.
VT = Voltage equivalent of temperature = T/11,600 (temperature T is in kelvin)

Note: If the temperature is given in °C then it can be converted to kelvin with the help of the
following relation, °C + 273 = K

It is generally profitable to replace a device or system by its equivalent circuit. Once the device is
replaced by its equivalent circuit, the resulting network can be solved by traditional circuit analysis
technique.

Switch

rf
I
f
V Vo
F
VF
(i) (ii)

Figure 2.5 Diode equivalent circuit. (i) Symbol (ii) equivalent circuit
The forward current I f flowing through the diode causes a voltage drop in its internal resistance, rf.
Therefore, the forward voltage VF applied across the actual diode has to overcome

1. potential barrier Vo

2. internal drop If rf

Vf = Vo + If rf (2.2)
For silicon diode Vo = 0.7 V whereas for germanium diode Vo = 0.3 V.
For ideal diode rf = 0.
5.0 RECOMMENDATION AND CONCLUSION

The project gave an insight on how much a semiconductor material is useful to electronics

engineers and to all other engineering department. There can always be an improvement in every

aspect, as to the student exposures to more semiconductors. Getting more access to ic's made from

semiconductor will help in getting more experience.

REFERENCES

Serway, Raymond A., and Jerry S. Faughn. Holt Physics. Austin, Texas 1997.

Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 2000.

Principles of Electronics - V.K. Mehta and Rohit Mehta, New Delhi, 2002

Zitzewitz, Paul W., Ph.D, et al. Glencoe Physics: Principles and Problems. Columbus, Ohio:

Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, 2002.

The MAD Scientist Network. 1995-2001 or 30 Feb. 1906. Washington US School of Medicine. 10

Oct. 2005. <http://www.madsci.org>.

Chem4Kids.com 1997-2007. Andrew Rader Studios.

< http://www.chem4kids.com/files/elements/014_shells.html>

Energy Efficiencey and Renewable Energy (EERE). U.S. Department of Energy. 01/03/2006.

<http://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/doping_silicon.html>

BobEmery Catholic Schools Diocese of Maitland, Newcastle2002.

03/21/07.<http://webs.mn.catholic.edu.au/physics/emery/hsc_ideas_implementation.htm#semi

SatCure (Car, Hobby Electronics and Books). <http://www.satcure-focus.com/tutor/page4.htm>

Fun with Transistors.08/27/2006 Max Robinson.09/06/2006.

< http://www.angelfire.com/planet/funwithtransistors/Basics_03_Sc_Diodes.html>

Rubrics. Utah Education Network. < http://www.uen.org/Rubric/rubric.cgi?rubric_id=25