Chapter 6

Bipolar Junction Transistors

(BJTs)
Electronic Devices
Conventional Current Version
Seventh Edition
By
Floyd
Engr. Muhammad Faraz
Department of Electronics Engineering
University of Engineering & Technology Taxila
Email: Muhammad.faraz@uettaxila.edu.pk
Amplifier Operation
Linear Amplifier: Coupling capacitor C2
block dc and prevents
Coupling capacitor C1 Good Coupling: Xc< 0.1R RL from changing the dc
block dc and prevents Rs bias voltage at the
from changing the dc bias collector.
voltage at the base.
Amplifier Operation
Linear Amplifier(contd)
• The coupling capacitors appears ideally as short to signal
voltage.
• The sinusoidal source voltage causes the base voltage to
vary sinusoidally above and below its dc bias level.
• The resulting variation in base current produces a larger
variations in collector current because of the current gain
of the transistor.
• As the sinusoidal collector current increases the collector
voltage decreases.
• The collector current varies above and below its Q point
in phase with the base current.
 Amplifier Operation
Linear Amplifier(contd)
• The sinusoidal collector
to emitter voltage(Vce)
varies above and below
its Q point 180° out of
phase with the base
voltage.
• The transistor always
produces phase
inversion between the
base voltage and the
collector voltage.
Amplifier Operation
Linear Amplifier(contd)
Transistor AC Equivalent Circuits
• It is often useful to represent the transistor by an
equivalent circuit for its operation in an amplifier circuit.
• An equivalent circuit uses various transistor parameters to
represent the transistor’s operation.
1. r- parameters:
• Most commonly used
for BJT’s
r-Parameter Equivalent Circuit
r’c is several 100Ω and can
be replaced by open

r’b is small enough Current source

to neglect

Relation of transistor
symbol to r-parameter
equivalent
Determining r’e by formula
• For amplifier analysis, the ac emitter resistance r’e
is the most important of the r parameters.
• r’e is temperature dependent.

At 20°𝐶
Comparison of 𝛽ac and 𝛽DC
Graph of IC versus is IB is nonlinear.
At different points on the nonlinear curve the ratio will be
different.

The values of these two quantities will be slightly

different.
h-Parameters
• They are typically specified on manufacturer’s
data sheet, h (hybrid)parameters
Relation Between h and r Parameters
The Common Emitter(CE) Amplifier
• CE amplifiers exhibits high voltage and high current gain.
The circuit has dc and ac Amplified output is 180°
operation, both of which out of phase with input
must be considered.

Input at base, Output

at Collector and Bypass Capacitor from
Emitter ground. emitter to ground.
The CE Amplifier(contd)
DC Analysis
• For dc analysis, replace the coupling and bypass
capacitors with open.
The dc input resistance at the
base is:

As RIN(base) >> 10R2

The CE Amplifier(contd)
The AC equivalent Circuit
• For analysis of ac signal operation of an amplifier, an ac
equivalent circuit is developed as follows:
1. The capacitors C1, C2 and C3 are replaced by effective
shorts, because their values are selected so that Xc = 0
Ω, at the signal frequency.
2. Ac ground: The dc source is replaced by a ground.
Assuming that the voltage source has an internal
resistance of 0 Ω so that no ac voltage is developed
across the source terminals.
• Therefore Vcc terminal is at zero-volt ac potential and is
called ac ground.
The CE Amplifier(contd)
The AC equivalent Circuit

In ac analysis, ac ground and the actual ground are treated as the same point
electrically.
The bypass capacitor C2 keeps the emitter at ac ground. Ground is the common
point in the circuit.
The CE Amplifier(contd)
Signal (AC) Voltage at Base
The CE Amplifier(contd)
Input Resistance at the Base
• Using the simplified r-parameter model of the transistor.
The CE Amplifier(contd)
Output Resistance
• The output resistance of CE amplifier is the resistance
looking in at the collector and is approximately equal to
collector resistor.
Example 6-3
below
above
The CE Amplifier(contd)
Voltage Gain (Av)
• The gain is the ratio of ac output voltage at the
collector(Vc) to ac input voltage at the base(Vb).
• The ac voltage gain for the CE amplifier is developed using
the circuit given below.

Voltage gain from base to

collector
The CE Amplifier(contd)
Overall Voltage Gain(A’v)
• The overall gain of the amplifier is from the source
voltage(Vs) to collector voltage(Vc).
• Signal voltage is reduced as it passes through the circuit
(Attenuation).
• The attenuation from source to base (Vb/Vs) multiply by
gain from base to collector (Vc/Vb) is the overall amplifier
gain.
The CE Amplifier(contd)
Overall Voltage Gain(A’v)
The CE Amplifier(contd)
Effect of Emitter Bypass Capacitor on Voltage Gain
Emitter bypass capacitor C2
provides effective short to
ac signal around emitter
resistance

With bypass capacitor the

gain of the amplifier is
maximum and is RC / r’e

A good rule of thumb is that XC of the bypass capacitor should be ten times less
than RE at the minimum frequency for which the amplifier must operate.
Example 6-4
below

The capacitance is determined at

minimum value of frequency as
The CE Amplifier(contd)
Voltage Gain Without Bypass Capacitor
• Without bypass capacitor the emitter is no longer at
ac ground.
• RE is seen by the ac signal between emitter and
ground and effectively adds to r’e in the voltage gain
formula.

• The effect of the RE is to decrease the voltage gain.

Example 6-5
above
The CE Amplifier(contd)
Effect of a Load on Voltage Gain
• A load is the amount of current drawn from the
output of the amplifier or other circuit through load
resistance.
• When RL is connected to the output through the
coupling capacitor, it creates load on the circuit.
• The collector resistance at the signal frequency is
effectively RC in parallel with RL.
• Upper end of RC is at ac ground.
• The total ac resistance is
The CE Amplifier(contd)
Effect of a Load on Voltage Gain
C
Example 6-6
below
The CE Amplifier(contd)
Stability of the Voltage Gain
• Stability is a measure of how well an amplifier maintains its
design values over changes in temperature and other factors.
• Bypassing RE does produce a maximum voltage gain but there
is a stability problem because the ac voltage is dependent on
r’e since Av = 𝑅c 𝑟 ′ .
𝑒
• r’e depends on IE and on temperature.
• This causes the gain to be unstable as r’e changes with
temperature.
• With no bypass capacitor, the gain decreases as
Av = 𝑅𝐶 𝑅 +𝑟 ′ , but the gain is much less dependent on r’e.
𝐸 𝑒
The CE Amplifier(contd)
Swamping r’e to Stabilize the Voltage Gain
• Swamping is the method used to minimize the effect of r’e
without reducing the voltage gain to its minimum value.
• Swamping is in effect a compromise between having a
bypass capacitor across RE and having no bypass capacitor
at all.
• In a swamped amplifier RE is partially bypassed so that
reasonable gain can be achieved, and the effect of r’e on
the gain is greatly reduced or eliminated.
• The total external emitter resistance RE is formed by the
combination of RE1 and RE2 and RE2 is bypassed as shown
in fig below.
The CE Amplifier(contd)
Swamping r’e to Stabilize the Voltage Gain
• Both (RE1 + RE2 ) effects the dc bias while RE1 only
effects the ac voltage gain.

If RE1 >> 10r’e

Example 6-7
below
The CE Amplifier(contd)
The Effect of Swamping on Amplifier’s Input Resistance
• The ac input resistance looking into the base of CE
amplifier with RE completely bypassed is

• When emitter resistance is partially bypassed, the

portion of the resistance that is unbypassed is
seen by the ac signal and contributes to the input
resistance by appearing in series with r’e
The CE Amplifier(contd)
Phase inversion in CE Amplifier
• The output voltage at the collector of the CE
amplifier is 180° out of phase with the input
voltage at the base.
• The phase inversion is sometimes indicated by
negative sign in front of voltage gain, -Av.
Example 6-8
Q. For the amplifier in fig below:
a) Determine dc collector voltage.
b) Determine ac collector voltage.
c) Draw the total
collector voltage
waveform and
total output
voltage
waveform.
As RIN(base) >> 10 R2 so neglect it
The CE Amplifier(contd)
Current Gain
The CE Amplifier(contd)
Current Gain
The CE Amplifier(contd)
Power Gain
• The overall power gain is the product of overall
voltage gain(A’v) and overall current gain (Ai)
The Common Collector (CC) Amplifier
• The CC amplifier is usually referred as emitter-
follower (EF).
• The input is applied to the base through a coupling
capacitor, and the output is at the emitter.
• The voltage gain of CC amplifier is ≅ 1.
• Its main advantage are high input resistance and
current gain.
The CC Amplifier(contd)

Collector is at ac ground

Output is capacitively
coupled to emitter

Input is capacitively
coupled to base
No phase
inversion.
Output ≅ Input
The CC Amplifier(contd)
Voltage Gain
The CC Amplifier(contd)
Voltage Gain
• Since the output voltage is at the emitter, it is in
phase with the base voltage, so there is no
inversion from input to output.
• As the voltage gain is ≅ 1, the output voltage
closely follows the input voltage in both phase and
amplitude; thus the term emitter-follower.
The CC Amplifier(contd)
Input Resistance
• The emitter follower is characterized by its high
input resistance; that is what makes it a useful
circuit.
• It can be used as a buffer to minimize loading
effects, when a circuit is driving a low resistance
load.
• In CC circuit the emitter resistance is never
bypassed because the output is taken across Re
The CC Amplifier(contd)
Input Resistance
The CC Amplifier(contd)
Output Resistance
• With the load removed the output resistance
looking into the emitter of the emitter-follower is
approximated as follows:

Rs= Resistance of the input source

• The output resistance is very low, making the

emitter-follower useful for driving low-resistance
loads.
The CC Amplifier(contd)
Current Gain

If R1|| R2 >> RIN(base), then

most input current goes into
the base

𝐼𝑒
Ai =
𝐼𝑏

𝜷𝒂𝒄 is maximum achievable

current gain in both CE and
CC amplifier
The CC Amplifier(contd)
Power Gain
• The overall power gain is approximately equal to
current gain because the voltage gain is
approximately equal to 1
Example 6-9
below
Common-Base (CB) Amplifier
• The CB amplifier provides high voltage gain with a
maximum current gain of 1.
• CB amplifiers has a low input resistance and are used
in applications where source tend to have very low-
resistance outputs.
• The base is the common terminal and is at ac ground
because of capacitor C2.
• The input signal is capacitively coupled to the emitter.
• The output is capacitively coupled from the collector
to a load resistor.
CB Amplifier (contd)
CB Amplifier (contd)
Voltage Gain:

Input Resistance:
CB Amplifier (contd)
Output resistance:

Current Gain:

Power Gain:
Example 6-11
below
Relative Comparison of Amplifier
Configurations