TRANSISTORS & APPLICATIONS

Bipolar Junction Transistors

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Class of transistors
• Class A
• Common way to run a transistor in linear circuits
• Leads to the simplest and most stable biasing circuits
• Not most efficient
• Class B
• Clips of half a cycle
• Use push pull arrangement
• Class AB
• better efficiency
• used in high-fidelity audio systems
• Class C
• Need resonance circuit for the load https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e_OUyGCaBs
• Tuned amplifiers

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 Class of transistors

Class A
Class B

Class AB Class C
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• TRANSISTOR CONSTRUCTION
• in the circuit connections we need four terminals:
• two terminals for input and another two terminals for
output.
• To overcome these problems we use:
• one terminal as common for both input and output
actions.
• Using this property we construct the circuits and these
structures are called transistor configurations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ukDKVHnac4

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 0.150”
0.001”

• Heavily doped • Lightly doped • moderately doped

• Moderate size • Smallest size • Largest size

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Transistors Operation

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Forward bias
• At the junction,
electron and hole +ve ions: donor
recombine Majority carrier
• Leaving +ve and –
Minority carrier
ve ion, and create
thin depletion
region
• When VEE is
applied, ‘pressure’
electron flows.
• When VEE > 0.7 V:
floods of electron
flows through the
junction
• Exponential rise in
current
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Reverse bias -ve ion: acceptor
• At the junction,
electron and hole Minority carrier
recombine:
Majority carrier
depletion layer
• At bias, free
electrons in ‘n’
region drawn to
+ve terminal of Vcc
• Holes will be
attracted to –ve
terminal of Vcc
• Causes widening of
depletion layer
• Majority carrier has
great barrier to
overcome
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 holes
electrons

• If additional voltage
• Free electron recombine with hole there.
supply connected to
• Since moderately doped, limited (2 – 5%): IB.
the base
• Majority (98 – 95%) will cross the depletion
• Scenario changed
region due to kinetic energy gain from
electrostatic force of VBE 11
 Applying KCL,

• Minority current:
leakage current
Forward bias Reverse bias • microAmp/ nanoAmp
• Imperfection/limitation
of transistor
• Severely affect the
system at high
temperature
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https://www.youtube.com/wat
ch?v=HqhE-8xXeCQ
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Transistor connection
Common Base (CB) Configuration: no
current gain but voltage gain

Common Emitter (CE) Configuration:

current gain and voltage gain

Common Collector (CC) Configuration:

current gain but no voltage gain

These configuration are for n-p-n

transistor. The current flows shown are all
reversed for a p-n-p transistor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65jKlnoXrWY 14
Transistor as an amplifier

Understanding the structure of transistor. How the transistor works

• https://youtu.be/jKVPEIMybUg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ukDKVHnac4

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcxDiesy-nI
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The function of amplifier is to provide an output which is greater
than input

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INVERTING AMPLIFIER VS NON-INVERTING AMPLIFIER

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1) COMMON-BASE CONFIGURATION

• The base is common (reference)

to both input (emitter-base)
junction and output (collector-
base) junction of the transistor

Fig 2: Notation and symbols used with

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXh5gMc6kyU the common-base configuration.

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• signal
voltages Vin and Vout are
“in-phase”
• and amplified

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• 1) COMMON-BASE CONFIGURATION

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BJT regions of operation

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 Operation region summary

Operation IB or VCE BC and BE Mode

Region Char. Junctions
Cutoff IB = Very Reverse & Open
small Reverse Switch
Saturation VCE = Small Forward & Closed
Forward Switch
Active VCE = Reverse & Linear
Linear Moderate Forward Amplifier
Break- VCE = Beyond Overload
down Large Limits
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 Input Characteristics Output Characteristics
• The curve shows the relationship • The graph demonstrates the
between input current (IE) to input output current (IC) to an output
voltage (VBE) for three output voltage (VCB) for various levels of
voltage (VCB) levels. input current (IE).

Fig 3: Input characteristics for common-base Fig 4: Output characteristics for common-base
transistor amplifier 27
transistor amplifier
 OPERATING REGIONS (C-B)
IC increases
Operating range
exponentially as
of amplifier
VCB increases
toward 0V.

APPROXIMATIONS:

IC  I E

IC
α dc 
IE

VBE = 0.7 V (Si) Amplifier is off. Ic = 0 A

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• ALPHA (𝜶)
• Alpha (𝜶) is the ratio of IC to IE :

IC
α dc 
IE

• Ideally: 𝛼 = 1
• In reality: 𝛼 falls somewhere between 0.9 and 0.998

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2) COMMON-EMITTER CONFIGURATION
• Inversion, 180°, between the input
and output signals.
• The emitter is common to both input
(base-emitter) and output (collector-
emitter) circuits.
• The input is applied to the base.
• The output is taken from the
collector
• NPN > widely used >PNP

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• Common-emitter amplifier currents:

Ideal Currents

IE = IC + IB IC =  I E

• In the active region of a common-emitter amplifier

the collector-base junction is reverse-biased, while
the base-emitter junction is forward-biased

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Base/ Input Characteristics Collector/ Output Characteristics

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BETA (𝜷)
• 𝛽 represents the amplification factor of a transistor.

IC
 dc 
IB

• Ranges from about 50 to over 400,

• Relationship between amplification factors 𝛽 and 𝛼
α
β
β 1 α
α IE = IC + IB IC =  IE
β 1

• 𝛽 is particularly important parameter because it provides a direct link between

current levels of the input and output circuits for a common-emitter
configuration
I C  βI B IE  (β  1)IB
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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUXG9eZfSlw
C-E in application

Provide bias: Load resistor: often large so the

transistor will output impedance (resistance and
remain in active reactance) can be prohibitively
region high
Allow AC signal
to pass

AC coupling between
stages. Should be
negligible reactance at the
frequencies of operation. bypass
Will allow AC signal to pass capacitor: to
enable greater
levels of AC gain

Note: Voltage gain = R3/R4 = RC/RE: distortion

Alleviate distortion due to small signal limit.
and stability increases at the expense of
It will decreases gain, but increases linearity and stability
reduction in gain
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3) COMMON-COLLECTOR CONFIGURATION

• The input is on the base

and the output is on the
emitter

Fig 5: Notation and symbols used with

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the common-collector configuration.
 Input and output
• Primarily used for impedance-matching purposes. Advantage due to:
• High input impedance
• Low output impedance
• Also used as buffer voltage
• To transfer a voltage from a first circuit, having a high output impedance level, to
a second circuit with a low input impedance level.
• large current gain, larger than any other transistor amplifier

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 • The input and output signals are
in phase

• This common collector

configuration is a non inverting
amplifier circuit. The voltage gain
for this circuit is less than unity
but it has large current gain

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• The simplest way of connecting an emitter follower:

The common collector

configuration has high
Directly input impedance and
couple the low output
input. impedance.

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C-C in application

not always possible to

directly couple the emitter
follower (lower impedance). C2: equal the circuit
Thus, add: resistance at the lowest
1. coupling capacitors frequency of operation
2. bias resistors

C1: The value of

the input
capacitor should
equal the
resistance of the
input circuit at the R3: Choosing an emitter voltage of
lowest frequency about half the supply voltage to give
the most even range before the onset
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of any clipping
Transistor as an amplifier
Demonstration to proof that IB << IC in the operation of transistor: voltage buffer

• provehttps://youtu.be/8ZEQEV-Stkc

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COMMON-COLLECTOR CONFIGURATION
• For common-collector
configuration, the output
characteristics are similar
to those of the common-
emitter configuration
except the vertical axis is
𝐼𝐸

• Output characteristics are a

plot of 𝐼𝐸 versus 𝑉𝐶𝐸 for a
range of values of 𝐼𝐵

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BJT applications

NPN BJT switch circuit

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