09/03/1442

Course Instructor:

Dr.Eng. Ehab Helmy Mohamed Elshazly.

Lectures series in Assistant Professor at Egyptian Atomic Energy Authority

Electronics 3 B.Sc. Electronic Engineering, Menoufya University.

M.Sc. Communication Engineering, Menoufya University.
Ph.D. Communication Engineering, E-JUST.
By
Dr. Eng. Ehab Helmy ElShazly Research area: Computer vision & Image processing.

Mobile: 01009448624
What's app: 01110530991
Email: ehab.elshazly@ejust.edu.eg
ihab.helmy311@hti.edu.eg

Lecture Overview
• What is a Transistor?
Reference books: • History
• Types
Microelectronic Devices, By Edward S. Yang.
• Characteristics
Microelectronic Devices and Circuits, By Clifton G. Fonstad.
• Applications
• CMOS Inverter

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A Brief History
The word “Transistor” refers to a semiconductor device that can perform switching
and amplification.

An electronic device that can function as a switch or an amplifier is called  Guglielmo Marconi invents radio in 1895
an active component.

Electrical switching and amplification did not begin with the invention of the transistor  Problem: For long distance travel, signal must be amplified
in 1948; however, this invention was the beginning of a new era, because transistors
were small, efficient, and mechanically resilient compared to the active components  Lee De Forest improves on Fleming‟s original vacuum tube to amplify
called vacuum tubes that were used prior to the existence of transistors. Signals but it was too bulky for most applications

A three-layer combination of n-type and p-type semiconductor results in a three-

terminal device that allows a small current flowing through the base terminal to
regulate a larger current flowing between the emitter and collector terminals.

Vacuum tubes
The Transistor is Born
• Purpose
– Used as signal amplifiers and switches
– Advantages • Bell Labs (1947): Bardeen, Brattain, and
Shockley
• High power and frequency operation
• Originally made of germanium
• Operation at higher voltages
• Current transistors made of doped silicon
• Less vulnerable to electromagnetic pulses
– Disadvantages
• Very large and fragile
• Energy inefficient
• Expensive

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How Transistors Work Doping

• Process of introducing impure elements (dopants) into semiconductor
wafers to form regions of differing electrical conductivity

 Doping: adding small amounts of other elements to create additional

protons or electrons

 P-Type: dopants lack a fourth valence electron (Boron, Aluminum)

 N-Type: dopants have an additional (5th) valence electron (Phosphorus,

Arsenic)

 Importance: Current only flows from P to N

Negatively charged Semiconductor Positively charged semiconductor

Diodes and Bias

P-N junction Biasing
 Diode: simple P-N junction.

 Forward Bias: allows current to flow from P to

Forward Biasing Reverse Biasing
N.

 Reverse Bias: no current allowed to flow from N

to P.

 Breakdown Voltage: sufficient N to P voltage of

a Zener Diode will allow for current to flow in
this direction.

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BJT Schematic

BJT Introduction • 3 adjacent regions of doped Si NPN

(each connected to a lead):
– Base. (thin layer, less doped).
 Bipolar Junction Transistors (BJT) consists of – Collector.
three “sandwiched” semiconductor layers
– Emitter.

 The three layers are connected to collector (C),

emitter (E), and base (B) pins • NPN
– BE forward bias
 Current supplied to the base controls the – BC reverse bias PNP
amount of current that flows through the
collector and emitter • PNP
– BE reverse bias
– BC forward bias

IE = IB + I C ………(KCL)

VEC = VEB + VBC ……… (KVL)

BJT npn Transistor

 1 thin layer of p-type, sandwiched between 2 layers of n-type. BJT characteristics
 N-type of emitter: more heavily doped than collector. • Current Gain:
 With VC>VB>VE:  α is the fraction of electrons that diffuse across the narrow Base region
 1- α is the fraction of electrons that recombine with holes in the Base region
 Base-Emitter junction forward biased, Base-Collector reverse biased. to create base current
 Electrons diffuse from Emitter to Base (from n to p). • The current Gain is expressed in terms of the β (beta) of the transistor (often
called hfe by manufacturers).
 There‟s a depletion layer on the Base-Collector junction no flow of e-
allowed. • β (beta) is Temperature and Voltage dependent.
 BUT the Base is thin and Emitter region is n+ (heavily doped)  • It can vary a lot among transistors (common values for signal BJT: 20 - 200).
electrons have enough momentum to cross the Base into the Collector.
 The small base current IB controls a large current IC
I C  I E
I B  (1   ) I E
IC 
 
IB 1

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BJT Characteristic Curves

BJT Characteristic Curves
Input Characteristic
Transfer Characteristic • The Input Characteristic is the base emitter current IBE against base
emitter voltage VBE
• Characteristic curves can be drawn to show other useful parameters of the
transistor • IBE/VBE shows the input Conductance of the transistor.
• The slope of ICE / IBE is called the Transfer Characteristic (β) • The increase in slope of when the VBE is above 1 volt shows that the input
conductance is rising
• There is a large increase in current for a very small increase in VBE.

npn Common Emitter circuit

BJT Characteristic Curves
• Emitter is grounded.

• Base-Emitter starts to conduct with VBE=0.6V, IC flows and it‟s IC=b*IB.

Output Characteristic
• collector current (IC) is nearly independent of the collector-emitter voltage • Increasing IB, VBE slowly increases to 0.7V but IC rises exponentially.
(VCE), and instead depends on the base current (IB)
• As IC rises ,voltage drop across RC increases and VCE drops toward ground.
IB4 (transistor in saturation, no more linear relation between I C and IB)

IB3

IB2
IB1

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Operation region summary

BJT Applications
Operation IB or VCE
BC and BE Mode BJT Switch
Region Char.
Junctions • Offer lower cost and substantial reliability over conventional
mechanical relays.
Cutoff IB = Very
Reverse & Open Switch • Transistor operates purely in a saturated or cutoff state (on/off)
small
Reverse • This can prove very useful for digital applications (small current
controls a larger current)
Saturation VCE = Small
Forward & Closed
Forward Switch
Active VCE = Reverse & Linear
Linear Moderate Forward Amplifier
Break-down VCE = Large Beyond Overload
Limits

BJT as Switch
•Vin(Low ) < 0.7 V
•BE junction not forward biased
•Cutoff region
•No current flows
•Vout = VCE = Vcc
•Vout = High

•Vin(High)
•BE junction forward biased (VBE=0.7V)
•Saturation region
•VCE small (~0.2 V for saturated BJT)
•Vout = small
•IB = (Vin-VB)/RB
•Vout = Low

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OFF Switch ON Switch

In cut off region Ib very small and Ic very small. Transistor In saturation regionVce very so dissipated power is almost
acts as off switch zero. Transistor acts as on switch

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BJT as Amplifier

Field Effect Transistor

• The common emitter transistor amplifier is the only configuration that
gives an inversion, 180°, between the input and output signals.

• The reason for this can be seen from the fact that as the input voltage rises,
so the current increases through the base circuit. In turn this increases the
current thought the collector circuit, i.e. it tends to turn the transistor on.

• This results in the voltage between the collector and emitter terminals
falling.

 The FET transistors are voltage controlled devices, where as the BJT transistors are
current controlled devices.
 The FET transistors have basically three terminals, such as Drain (D), Source (S)
and Gate (G) which are equivalent to the collector, emitter and base terminals in
the corresponding BJT transistor.
 In BJT transistors the output current is controlled by the input current which is
applied to the base, but in the FET transistors the output current is controlled by the
input voltage applied to the gate terminal.
 In the FET transistors the output current passes between the drain and source
terminals and this path is called channel and this channel may be made of either P-
type or N-type semiconductor materials.
 In BJT transistor a small input current operates the large load, but in FET a small
input voltage operates the large load at the output.
 The BJT transistors are „bipolar‟ devices because they operates with both types of
charge carriers, such as electrons and holes but the Field Effect Transistor is a
unipolar device in which the current is carried only by the majority carriers (either
by hoes or electrons).
 The FET transistors can be made smaller in size compared to BJT transistor and also
they have less power dissipation. Due to this high efficiency the FET transistors are
used in many electronic circuit applications by replacing the corresponding BJT
transistors.
 These FET transistors are very useful in the chip designing due to their low power
consumption behaviour.
 The FET transistors are mainly classified into two types; they are Junction Field
Effect Transistor (JFET) and Insulated Gate FET (IG-FET) or Metal Oxide
Semiconductor FET (MOSFET).

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Junction Field Effect Transistor (JFET)

 The JFET transistors are used as electronically controlled switches, Voltage
controlled resistors and as amplifiers.

 BJT transistors are constructed with the PN-junctions but the JFET transistors have a
channel instead of the PN-junctions. This channel is formed due to the either of P-
type or N-type semiconductor materials.

 The JFET transistors are classified into two types; they are N-channel JFET and P-
channel JFET.

 The N-channel JFET has more current conduction than P-channel JFET because the
mobility of electrons is greater than the mobility of holes. So the N-channel JFETs
are widely used than P-channel JFETs.

 The small voltage at the gate (G) terminal controls the current flow in the channel
(between drain and source) of the JFET.

N-Channel MOSFET

 MOSFET
 Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor (MOSFET) is most useful type
of among all transistors.
 The name itself indicates that it contains metal gate terminal. The MOSFET has four
terminals drain, source, gate and body or substrate (B).
 MOSFET has many advantages over BJT and JFET, mainly it offer high input
impedance and low output impedance. It is used in low power circuits mainly in
chip designing technologies.
 The MOSFET having N-channel region between source and drain is called N-
channel MOSFET.
 Source and drain terminals are heavily doped with n-type materials and substrate is
doped with p-type semiconductor material.
 Current flow between source and drain is because of electrons and controlled by the
gate voltage.
 N-channel MOSFET is most preferable than P-channel MOSFET because the
mobility of electrons is high than mobility of holes.

 The MOSFET transistors are available in depletion and enhancement types. Further
the depletion and enhancement types are classified into N-channel and P-channel
types.

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P- Channel MOSFET
n-Channel MOSFET  The MOSFET having P-channel region between source and drain is called as P-
channel MOSFET.
 Source and drain terminals are heavily doped with P-type material and the substrate
is doped with N-type material.
 The current flow between source and drain is because of holes concentration.
 The applied voltage at gate will controls the flow of current through channel region.

PMOS Structure Switch models of MOSFETs

g=0 g=1

d d d
nMOS g OFF
ON
• PMOS transistor has a negative threshold voltage (Vtp) -0.3v~-1.2v s s s
• A pMOS turns on when Vgs<Vtp
d d d

pMOS g OFF
ON
s s s

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MOSFET Characteristics Curve

The image below shows the characteristic curve of MOSFET in three regions of
operation.  Based on the above mentioned working of a MOSFET, it can be concluded that a
MOSFET has three regions of operation. They are:
It depicts the Drain Current ID versus the Drain to Source Voltage VDS for a given Gate
to Source Voltage VGS.  Cut-off Region
 Linear (or Triode) Region
 Saturation Region

 A MOSFET operates in cut-off region when VGS < VTH. In this region, the MOSFET
is in OFF state as there is no channel induced between drain and source.

 For the channel to be induced and MOSFET to operate in either linear or saturation
region, VGS > VTH.

 The Gate – Drain bias voltage VGD will determine whether the MOSFET is in linear
or saturation region.

 In both these regions, the MOSFET is in ON state but the difference is in linear
region, the channel is continuous and the drain current is proportional to the
resistance of the channel.

 Coming to saturation region, as VDS > VGS – VTH, the channel pinches off i.e.
broadens resulting in a constant Drain Current.

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