CHPTER2

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Semiconductors

A semiconductor material is one whose electrical properties lie in between those of

insulators and good conductors. Examples are: germanium and silicon. In terms of energy

bands, semiconductors can be defined as those materials which have almost an empty

conduction band and almost filled valence band with a very narrow energy gap (of the

order of 1 eV) separating the two.

2.1.1 types of semiconductors

Semiconductor may be classified as under:

a. Intrinsic Semiconductors

An intrinsic semiconductor is one which is made of the semiconductor material in

its extremely pure form. Examples of such semiconductors are: pure germanium and silicon

which have forbidden energy gaps of 0.72 eV and 1.1 eV respectively. The energy gap is

so small that even at ordinary room temperature; there are many electrons which possess

sufficient energy to jump across the small energy gap between the valence and the

conduction bands. Alternatively, an intrinsic semiconductor may be defined as one in

which the number of conduction electrons is equal to the number of holes. Schematic

energy band diagram of an intrinsic semiconductor at room temperature is shown in Fig.

below.

b. Extrinsic Semiconductors:

Those intrinsic semiconductors to which some suitable impurity or doping agent or doping

has been added in extremely small amounts (about 1 part in 10 8) are called extrinsic or

impurity semiconductors. Depending on the type of doping material used, extrinsic

semiconductors can be sub-divided into two classes:

 N-type Extrinsic Semiconductor:

This type of semiconductor is obtained when a pentavalent material like antimony (Sb) is

added to pure germanium crystal. As shown in Fig. below, each antimony atom forms

covalent bonds with the surrounding four germanium atoms with the help of four of its five

electrons. The fifth electron is superfluous and is loosely bound to the antimony atom.

Hence, it can be easily excited from the valence band to the conduction band by the

application of electric field or increase in thermal energy. It is seen from the above

description that in N-type semiconductors, electrons are the majority carriers while holes

constitute the minority carriers.

 P-type Extrinsic Semiconductor:

This type of semiconductor is obtained when traces of a trivalent like boron (B) are added

to a pure germanium crystal. In this case, the three valence electrons of boron atom form

covalent bonds with four surrounding germanium atoms but one bond is left incomplete

and gives rise to a hole as shown in Fig. below. Thus, boron which is called an acceptor

impurity causes as many positive holes in a germanium crystal as there are boron atoms
thereby producing a P-type (P for positive) extrinsic semiconductor. In this type of

semiconductor, conduction is by the movement of holes in the valence band.

2.1.2 Majority and Minority Carriers

In a piece of pure germanium or silicon, no free charge carriers are available at 0ºK.

However, as its temperature is raised to room temperature, some of the covalent bonds are

broken by heat energy and as a result, electron-hole pairs are Produced. These are called

thermally-generated charge carriers. They are also known as intrinsically-available charge

carriers. Ordinarily, their number is quite small. An intrinsic of pure germanium can be

converted into a P-type semiconductor by the addition of an acceptor impurity which adds

a large number of holes to it. Hence, a P-type material contains following charge carriers:

(a) Large number of positive holes—most of them being the added impurity holes with

only a very small number of thermally generated ones.

(b) A very small number of thermally-generated electrons (the companions of the thermally

generated holes mentioned above). Obviously, in a P-type material, the number of holes

(both added and thermally generated) is much more than that of electrons. Hence, in such

a material, holes constitute majority carriers and electrons form minority carriers as shown

in Fig.

below (a). Similarly, in an N-type material, the number of electrons (both added and

thermally-generated) is much larger than the number of thermally-generated holes. Hence,

in such a material, electrons are majority carriers whereas holes are minority carriers as

shown in Fig. below (b).

2.2 Semiconductors Electronics

Semiconductors are employed in the manufacture of various kinds of electronic devices,

including diodes, transistors, and integrated circuits.

  P-N Junction Diode

It is two terminal devices consisting of a P-N junction formed either in Ge or Si crystal. It

is circuit symbol is shown in fig. (1-a). The P and N type regions are referred to as anode

and cathode respectively. In fig. (1-b) arrowhead indicates the conventional direction of

current flow when forward biased. It is the same direction in which hole flow takes place.

A P-N junction diode is a one-way device offering low resistance when forward biased and

behaving almost as an insulator when reverse biased. Hence such diodes are mostly used

as rectifiers for converting alternating current into direct current.

 Transistors

A p-n junction diode, which permits current to flow in only one direction. This limits its

applications to rectification and detection. A more useful semiconductor device is a bipolar

junction transistor. The invention of transistor by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and

William Shockley in 1948 at Bell laboratory in USA revolutionized the electronic industry.
The transistors find many and varied uses in our daily life ranging from gas lighter to toys

to amplifiers, radio sets and television. In the form of switching device, these can be used

to regulate vehicular traffic on the roads. They form key elements in computers, space

vehicles, power systems in satellites and communication.

A transistor is basically a silicon or germanium crystal containing three alternate

regions of p and n-type semiconductors as shown in Fig. 28.16. These three regions

are called emitter(E), base(B) and collector(C). The middle region is the base and the

outer two regions are emitter and collector. Note that the emitter and collector

are of the same type (p or n) and collector is the largest of the three regions.

The base terminal controls the current flowing between the emitter and the collector. This

control action gives the transistor an added advantage over the diode, which has no

possibility of controlling the current flow. Depending on the type of doping, the transistors

are classified as n-p-n or p-n-p. In general, the level of doping decreases from emitter to

collector to base.

The names of the terminals of a transistor give clear indication of their functions.

In case of a n-p-n transistor, the majority carriers (electrons) from the emitter are

injected into base region. Since base is a very lightly doped thin layer, it allows

most of the electrons injected by the emitter to pass into the collector. Being the
largest of three regions, the collector dissipates more heat compared to the other

two regions.

The symbolic representations of n-p-n and p-n-p transistors are shown in Fig. 28.17. The

arrow head indicates the direction of flow of conventional current. You may now like to

ask : Why does the arrow head point outward in case of np-n transistor and inward in case

of p-n-p transistor?

In a n-p-n, transistor, the emitter current is due to flow of electrons from emitter

to base, and the conventional current flows from base to emitter and hence the

arrow head points out from the base. In case of p-n-p transistor, the emitter current

comprises flow of holes from emitter to base. Thus the conventional current flows from

emitter to base. Since transistors are bipolar devices, their operation depends on both the

majority and minority carriers.

2.3 Logic Gates

If you put a positive voltage to the base of a npn transistor, it opens the gate, allowing

current to ow from collector to emitter. If you put a negative voltage to the base of a pnp

transistor, it opens the gate, allowing current to ow from emitter to collector. What can we
do with these things? The next step to getting from transistors to computers is building the

basic set of Boolean logic gates. These are things like NOT, AND, NAND, OR, NOR or

XOR.

A NOT gate, also called an inverter, takes 0 and turns it into 1 and takes 1 and turns it into

0. It can be simply built from a npn transistor by connecting X to the base and Y to the

collector. We also hook a supply voltage up to the collector and the emitter to the ground.

So it looks as shown in Figure.

Figure NOT gate

So if X is 0 (o) then the current will not be able to pass through the transistor and is diverted

to Y. Thus X = 0 implies Y = 1. If X is 1 (on) then the gate is open and the current can pass

right through the transistor to ground, giving Y nothing. Thus X = 1 implies Y = 0. Figure

shows the operation of NOT gate.

Figure Operation of NOT gate

By the way, this gate also shows how transistors act like amplifiers: a small voltage (0.7V)

applied at X can be turned into an arbitrarily large voltage at Y (that of the supply voltage).

The efficiency of amplification lead to transistor radios in the 1950s: a weak radio signal

comes in that we can idealize a binary pattern 010010101 at X. Adding two NOT gates in

series with a large supply voltage produces the same pattern but amplified at Y as shown

in Figure. Previous radios used vacuum tubes for amplification and were heavy, delicate

pieces of furniture. The method of amplification using solid state transistors allowed radios

to be small and portable, ushering in the consumer electronics revolution.

Figure Two NOT gates used for amplification.

Note that the CMOS does not need a resistor to prevent shorting: in the opposition, no

current is drawn. Thus CMOS has very little static power consumption which is one if its

main advantages. CMOS circuits replaced NMOS as the standard sometime in the 1990s.

The integrated circuits in your computer and your phone undoubtedly use CMOS.4

The other standard logic gates are all 2 ! 1 gates, so they take two inputs and give one out.

AND for example, gives A ^ B meaning that if A and B are both 1, then it gives 1 otherwise

it gives 0. The definitions of these various operations are shown in Figure.

 Figure CMOS circuits operation

Example NMOS circuit diagrams to build some of these with transistors are shown in

Figure.

Figure NMOS circuits operation

Let's look at the NAND. The inputs A and B both have to be on for current to flow to

ground. If either is off, then the current flows to "Out". This is consistent with the NAND

logic table. The AND gate is the same, but the output is after the second emitter, so both

have to be on for current to flow out. For OR, if the based of either transistor gets current,

then the current will pass through to "Out", consistent with OR logic.
The XOR gate is an "exclusive OR", meaning it gives 1 if and only if 1 of the inputs is 1

and other is zero. We can construct an XOR gate out of NAND gates as shown in Figure.

Figure construction of XOR gate out of NAND gates

Can you figure out why this combination of NAND gates acts as an XOR gate?

Note from the logic table in Eq. (18) that XOR the same as for the addition of 1 bit binary

numbers. Although the single XOR gate only adds two 1 bit numbers modulo 2, which is

maybe not so interesting, XOR gates can be combined to make more complicated adders.

To add more than 2 bits, we need to carry over the second binary digit. We do this with a

carry block in what's called a half adder which shown in Figure.

Figure Block of the half adder

In this diagram, A and B are added with an XOR into S (for sum). The S bit is 0 if A = B

= 0, but also if A=B =1. If A=B =1 the answer should be 2, and we need a bit in the second

digit. The carry bit C carries this information: the AND sets bit C only if A = B = 1. Now

we just hook this up with another bit to add 3 bits in a full adder which shown in Figure.
 Figure Block of full adder

From here, you can add more and more bits together by sewing in successive adders. You

can make more complicate integrated circuits to multiply numbers and do other operations

to them. For example, Figure is a circuit that multiplies 3 bits A = (A2; A1:A0) by 4 bits

B = (B0; B1; B2; B3) to give 7 bits in C.

Figure a circuit that multiplies 3 bits by 4 bits

So to multiply 7 13 you would set A = 111 and B = 1101. The output should be the 7 bits

in C = 1011011. There's one final element needed to make a computer: memory. There are

many ways to make memory, but the basic form is a latch or flip-flop. For example, we

can make such a thing using cross-coupled NOR gates as shown in Figure.

Figure Latch (flip flop)

This object called a or SR latch (for Set-Reset) has two stable states, shown in red. Either

Q=1 and Q = 0 (left) or Q = 0 and Q = 1 (right). To change from the left state to the right,

we can put a current into the R input. Since R feeds into a NOR gate, it only gives current

out if both inputs are 0 so when we change R, the current stops. Once the current stops, it

no longer flows into the bottom NOR gate. Since S = 0 this then makes the current go out

of that gate and link up with the top NOR. At this point the current can be removed from

R and the circuit stays in the right state. To go from right to left, we can pulse S. In this

way, we can store a bit, and toggle it back and forth though the Set and Reset switches: Set

makes it 1 (left), Reset makes it 0 (right). Now that we have memory and can compute

things, it's just a matter of putting them together in ever more complex combinations.

Note that NAND has 2 transistors, XOR has 8, AND and OR have 3, so the full adder has

25 transistors. So a 4x4 bit adder should have roughly 400 transistors. Adding 4 bit numbers
doesn't seem like much, but you can actually reuse circuit elements fairly easily, storing

the output then feeding it back in. In early computers, the transistors were not the solid-

state devices we discussed here but rather vacuum tubes. The Mark 1 computer that you've

walked by a thousand times in the Science Center but never looked at has around 1000

mechanical relay transistors. It operated on 24 bit numbers and took about 0.3s to add two

such numbers. An iPhone X has 4 billion transistors and can add two 24 bit numbers in

around 1 GHz = 10^-9 s.