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TRANSISTORS
• A transistor is an active device which can increase
the strength of a signal.
EEE 2331 Electronics • It is manufactured by use of p – type and n – type
semiconductor materials.
• Transistor = Transfer resistor
• a) BJT – Bipolar junction transistor
By Manegene – Linear amplifier to boost an electrical signal
– Electronic switch
• b) FET - Field effect transistor

Bipolar Junction Transistor Construction

• It is constructed by sandwiching n type materials
between 2 p type materials (PNP)
• Or a p type material between 2 n type materials
(NPN)
• It uses electrons and holes as charge carriers.
• It has 2 junctions J1 and J2
• It has 3 terminals:
– Emitter -emits the majority charge carriers
– Collector - collects the charge carriers
– Base -controls those charge carriers moving from the
emitter to the collector

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NPN
• It is constructed by sandwiching a p – type
material between 2 n – type materials.
• It is like 2 diodes connected back to back.
• The arrows in the circuit symbol indicate the
direction of current when the transistor is in
operation.
• The emitter is heavily doped
– so that it can emit a large amount majority charge
carriers (electrons).
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NPN Transistor Construction
• The base is very thin and very lightly doped
– to allow majority charge carriers to move from the emitter
to the collector with minimal time possible
– reduce the base current by reducing the amount of charge
comes recombining when the features above increase the
collector current and reduce the base current. (Transistor
amplifier)
• The collector is larger in size than the other two and
moderately doped.
– Large size makes it able to dissipate large amount of power
without getting damaged.
– Moderate doping also reduced the amount of power
dissipated
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Operation Operation
• For a transistor to effectively operate the base emitter junction is
supposed to be forward – biased while the collector-base junction
is reverse biased.
• This is done by connecting the emitter to negative potential, the
base to positive potential and the collector to more positive
potential.
• The negative potential at the emitter repels the electrons which are
the majority charge carries. As they reach the base very few of
them will combine with holes to form the base current IB (5%).
• The rest will be attracted by the more positive potential at the
collector and then they pass through the base to form the collector
current (95% /98%) Base and collector cannot be interchanged due
to doping levels Using KCL IC + IB = IE

PNP construction
• The n – type semiconductor is sand-witched
between 2 p- type semiconductors.
• It is like 2 diodes connected front to front.
• The direction of the arrow in the circuit
symbol indicates the direction of current
when the transistor is in operation.
• The size and doping levels for the emitter,
base and collector are the same as those of
the NPN transistor

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Operation operation
• The B – E junction is forward biased while the collector –
base junction is reverse biased.
• This is done by connecting the emitter at the positive
potential, the base to a negative potential and collector to a
more negative potential.
• The positive potential at E repels the holes which are
majority charge carriers which move through the base by
being attracted by the more negative potential at the
collector.
• A few of those charged carriers will recombine at the base
to form IB (base current 2% - 5%) while the rest move
through to the collector to form the collector current (95%)

Transistor modes of connection

(configurations)
• A transistor has 3 terminals and since the input has 2
terminals and the output 2 terminals, one of the transistor
terminals is made to be common so that the input and
output can be measured.
• The common terminal is usually connected to the ground.
• All the common connections should maintain a forward
bias for the B – E junction and a reverse bias for the C – B
junction.
• The configurations are given by
– common base (CB),
– Common emitter (CE) and
– common collector (CC).

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Common Base (CB) connection CB continued

Common Emitter (CE) connection CE continued

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Common Collector Connection
Leakage Current
• Leakage current is caused by the flow of
minority charge carriers in a transistor
• flows in the PN junction in the common base
connection.
• ICBO leakage current is the current which flows
from C to B when the emitter is open.
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Relationship between current gains
Thermal Runaway
• This is a situation where an increment of current
leads to an increment of temperature in a
semiconductor.
• The increment of temperature in turn leads to an
increment of current,
• the process continues and if not kept in control
can damage the transistor.
• Si = 100C rise in temperatures doubles the
current
• Ge = 60C rise in temperature doubles the current
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transistor biasing
• This is the process of connecting a transistor
voltage supplies together with resistors so
that it can operate normally.
• The collector-base junction is reverse biased
and base-emitter junction is forward biased.
Base (Fixed) Bias
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Methods of transistor biasing
• (i) Base bias
• (ii) Base Bias with emitter feedback
• (iii) Base Bias with collector feedback
• (iv) Base Bias with collector and emitter
feedback
• (v) Emitter Bias with two supplies
• (vi) Voltage divider bias
Base (Fixed) Bias
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Emitter-bias Emitter-bias

Voltage-divider bias (Exact) Voltage-divider bias (Approximate)

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Voltage-divider bias Voltage-divider bias

Collector-feedback Collector-feedback

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Emitter-follower Common-base

BJT circuit analysis BJT analysis

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Small-Signal Analysis

BJT

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Introduction
• Small signal condition
– When the input signal (vin and, iin) is small so that
output signal (vout and, iout) is confined in the active
region of the output characteristics of the device, the
device is operating in a condition of small signal
– More specifically, the condition of small signal are
verified when the variations in output are so small
that the values of the parameters of the device can be
regarded as constant.
– In these conditions, the amplifiers can be analyzed
using the small-signal models of the BJT. The small
signal conditions occur, in general, for the first stages
constituting an amplification system
Introduction
Small signal models are used to determine amplifier
characteristics (Example: “Gain” = Increase in the
magnitude of a signal at the output of a circuit
relative to it’s magnitude at the input of the circuit).
Warning
when a certain value, the non-linear behavior of the
diode leads to distortion of the current/voltage if the
inputs/outputs exceed certain limits, the full Ebers-
Moll model must be used.

Single Stage Amplifier

• RB1, RB2 – Potential dividers
– RB1 is used to reverse bias the collector-base junction
– RB2 is use to forward bias the base-emitter junction.
• RC and RL are used to facilities the collection of the output signal
• RE is used to feedback any changes in IC so as to stabilize the bias
condition
• V2 = VBE + IERE
• C1 - Blocks any direct current from the source
• C2 - Blocks any direct current from appearing at the output
• C3 (decoupling capacitor) - Bypasses high frequency alternating
current signal to the ground which interferes with the bias
condition if fed back.

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Transistor Model Alternative representation

Small signal analysis

DC Equivalent for the BJT Amplifier
Step 1: Complete a D.C. Analysis
• The goal of this DC analysis is to determine:

1. The DC BJT currents ( IB, IC or IE) for each BJT.

2. The voltages VCE or VCB for each BJT.

Once you have found these values, you can CHECK your
active assumption, and then move on to step 2.

• Remember, all of the small-signal BJT parameters are DC Equivalent Circuit

dependent on D.C. values
• One must first determine the operating point of the • All capacitors in the original amplifier circuit are replaced by open
transistor in order to determine its small-signal circuits, disconnecting vI, RI, and R3 from the circuit and leaving RE
performance! intact. The the transistor Q will be replaced by its DC model.

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Step 2: Calculate the small-signal Step 2: Calculate the small-signal

circuit parameters for each BJT circuit parameters for each BJT
I • You need to calculate only the small signal
gm  C  40I
Transconductance:
V C parameters required by the small-signal circuit
T
model that you plan to implement.

 V 
1. use the Hybrid-Pi model, you must determine rπ
Input resistance: r  o T  o and gm.
I gm
C
2. use the T-model, you must determine re and gm

V V (not covered in this course
ro  A CE
Output resistance: I 3. You also need to account for the Early effect (in
C
either model) you must determine ro.


Step 3: Carefully replace all BJTs with

Step 3: Carefully replace all BJTs with
their small-signal circuit model.
their small-signal circuit model.
• Note the parts of the circuit external to the
transistor do not change! In other words:
1. every device attached to the BJT base is
attached in precisely the same way to the
base terminal of the circuit model.
2. every device attached to the BJT collector is
• The hybrid-pi small-signal model is the intrinsic low-frequency
representation of the BJT. attached in precisely the same way to the
• The small-signal parameters are controlled by the Q-point and are collector terminal of the circuit model.
independent of the geometry of the BJT.

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Step 3: Carefully replace all BJTs with
their small-signal circuit model.
3. every device attached to the BJT emitter is
attached in precisely the same way to the
emitter terminal of the circuit model.
4. every external voltage or current is defined in
precisely the same way both before and after
the BJT is replaced with its circuit model is (e.g.,
if the output voltage is the collector voltage in
the BJT circuit, then the output voltage is still the
collector voltage in the small-signal circuit!).
AC Equivalent for the BJT Amplifier
• The coupling and bypass capacitors are replaced by short circuits. The DC
voltage supplies are replaced with short circuits, which in this case connect
to ground.
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Step 4: Set all D.C. sources to zero
• A zero-voltage DC source is a short circuit.
• A zero-current DC source is an open circuit.
• Once the DC voltage sources are turned off, you will find
that the terminals of many devices are connected to
ground.
• As a result, resistors in different parts of the circuit are
actually connected in parallel, and thus can be combined
to simplify the circuit schematic!
• Finally, note that the AC impedance of a very large
capacitor is small for all but the lowest frequencies . If this
impedance is smaller than the other circuit elements (e.g.,
< 10Ω), we can view the impedance as approximately zero,
and thus replace the large capacitor with a (AC) short!
Step 5: Analyze small-signal circuit.
• We now can analyze the small-signal circuit
to find all small-signal voltages and currents.
•
• * For small-signal amplifiers, we typically
attempt to find the small-signal output voltage
in terms of the small-signal input voltage .
From this result, we can find the voltage gain
of the amplifier.
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Small-Signal Analysis of the Complete Common-Emitter Amplifiers

C-E Amplifier: AC Equivalent Small-Signal Equivalent Circuit

• The AC equivalent circuit is

constructed by assuming that all
capacitances have zero
impedance at signal frequency
and the AC voltage source is at
ground.
• Assume that the DC Q-point has
already been calculated.

Common-Emitter Amplifiers Small-Signal Analysis of Complete C-E

Small-Signal Equivalent Circuit Amplifier: Small-Signal Equivalent
vo  gmv R
be L
and
   
 v R r  
v   i  B  
be R  R r 
 B  
  
 I 

Overall voltage gain from source vi


to output voltage vo across R3 is:
v 
v v 
Av  vo  v o  vbe 
i  be  i 
R  ro R R  
L C 3  R r 
Av  gm R  B 

 

 ro can be neglected if ro  10RC L R  R r 
  I
 B  




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C-E Amplifier Input Resistance C-E Amplifier Output Resistance

• The output resistance is the total

• The input resistance, the total equivalent resistance looking into the
resistance looking into the output of the amplifier at coupling
amplifier at coupling capacitor C1, capacitor C3. The input source is set to 0
represents the total resistance and a test source is applied at the
presented to the AC source. output.
v v
ix  x  x  gm v But vbe=0.
v x  ix ( R r ) R ro be
B C
v v
R  x  R r  R R r Rout  x  R ro  R
in i B 1 2 ix C C
x
since ro is usually >> RC.

Common-Emitter Amplifiers
Calculation of source gain
Voltage Gain Example

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Common-Emitter Amplifiers
Voltage Gain Example cont

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