Basics of power electronics

EPM 105

Dr. Shery Asaad Wahba

Department of Electronics and Electrical

Communications Engineering

EPM 105, Dr. Shery Asaad, Lecture 1 1

 Mark Distribution
150
Marks

60 90
Marks Marks

Midterm Final
Quizzes Attendance
Exam 20 Written
Exam
Lab. &
project

EPM 105, Dr. Shery Asaad, Lecture 1 2

Course Topics
 Semiconductor physics.
 Currents in semiconductor.
 PN junction diodes and its applications.
 Bipolar junction transistor (BJT).
 Basic transistor circuits.
 Operational amplifier (op. amp.)
 Operational amplifier circuits.
 Introduction to silicon control rectifier (SCR): thyristor.

EPM 105, Dr. Shery Asaad, Lecture 1 3

 References

• “Electron devices”, an engineering approach, S.

Said, H. F. Ragai and H. Haddara.

• “Microelectronic Circuits” Sedra and Smith

• “Fundamentals of Solid State Electronics” Chih-

Tang Sah

• “Fundamentals of Power Electronics”, Robert W

Erickson

EPM 105, Dr. Shery Asaad, Lecture 1 4

Electrical power engineering deals with

the problems associated with electrical

energy systems such as power generation,

transmission, distribution and machine

control.

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Power electronics is the technology that acts as an
interface between the electrical source and the
electrical load.

The electrical source is the power supply available

and the load is the appliance that needs to be
powered.

This technology ensures that power is taken from the

source to the load in the most efficient and robust
way.

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the task of electronics is to process and
control the flow of electric energy you
know by supplying voltages and currents
in a form that is optimally suited for user
loads

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 Electronics
The branch of engineering in which the electronic devices
and their utilization are studied.

 Electronic device

The device which controls the flow of electrons

 These electronic devices are the main building blocks

of electronic circuits.

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 Electronics generations
Vacuum tube (1906):
 It is a glass tube that controls
electric current between
electrodes in an evacuated
container.
 It mostly rely on thermionic
emission of electrons from a
hot filament or a cathode
heated by the filament.
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 Vacuum tubes was used in the past in radio,
televisions, computers, etc., to control the flow of
electricity

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The Transistor Era
 A transistor is a device that regulates current or voltage
flow and acts as a switch or gate for electronic signals.
 Transistors consist of three layers of a semiconductor
material such as germanium and silicon.

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 Transistor rapidly replaced the bulky vacuum
tube that would consume high power for its
operation. .

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Simple discrete circuits

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 Integrated circuits (ICs)
 The entire electronic circuit got integrated on a single chip,
(low: cost, size and weight) electronic devices.
 several thousand components on a single chip such as
 small-scale integration (SSI, up to 100 components)
 medium-scale integration (MSI, up to 500 components)
 very-large scale integration Ics (VLSI, more than 300,000
components)
 very very-large scale integration Ics (VVLSI, more than
1,500,000 components).

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 Material Classification
• electrical conductivity is
very high
Conductors • Copper, Silver. Aluminum,
Tungsten .

• electrical conductivity is
either very small or nil.
Insulators • Glass, oxide, Wood,
Paper
• electrical conductivity
lies in between insulators
Semiconductors and conductors
• Silicon, Germanium,
Gallium arsenide .
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Semiconductor

It 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.

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

• Elemental semiconductors include silicon (Si),

germanium (Ge) and gallium arsenide (GaAs).

• Silicon is the best-known of these, forming the

basis of most integrated circuits (ICs)

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 Semiconductor
types

Intrinsic Extrinsic
pure Doped
semiconductor semiconductor

N-type P-type

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1. Intrinsic Semiconductor

Silicon atom

In isolated atoms, electrons occupy certain

discrete, energy levels.
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 Crystal structure of intrinsic
semiconductor (Bond model)

 Each atom is surrounded by four equidistant neighbors

 The bond between two nearest neighbors is formed by
two electrons
 This type of bonding, strengthened by the sharing of
electrons called covalent
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