TRANSISTOR

By
B.Kailesh Aadhithyaa
 INDEX
• Introduction
• History of Transistor
• Types of Transistor
• Transistor and its schematic representation
• Role of Emitter, base and collector
• Working and Transistor Action
• Current Parameters
• Applications of Transistor
 INTRODUCTION

• We all know “teansistor” is an integral

part of any electronic circuit/device .It is very rare
to see any circuit without at least one transistor.
This semiconductor device is used either for
switching purposes or for amplification purposes
in electronic devices. They are either packed
separately or found coupled to the integrated
circuits.
• Transistors are, for the most part, the
simplest types of active circuit elements
that are capable of increasing, or
amplifying, the power of electrical signals.
 History of Transistors

• The transistor was invented in 1947 by the American

Physicists John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William
Shockley at Bell Labs.
• The transistor led the modern era of solid state
electronics.
• The electronic circuits grew smaller and smaller, became
lighter and inexpensive.
• Exploration of outer space and deep sea, advancements
in atomic power, communications and computers,
entertainment, automatization of production processes-
all these and other fields were enriched
 Types of Transistors

• The term transistor is mainly associated with the

bipolar junction transistor(BJT).
• In BJT, the action of both holes and electrons is
important.
• There are other types of transistors given below,
but we are keeping our
• discussion to Bipolar junction Transistor only.
 Types of Transistors:

1.BJT(Bipolar Junction Transistor)

2.UJT(Unipolar Junction Transistor)
3.FET(Field Effect Transistor)
4.MOS( Metal Oxide Semiconductor)
Depending on the types of semiconductor
material used;
Thus, two types of two transistor are available.
They are npn and pnp transistor
 Transistors

• A transistor is a semiconductor device consisting

of three regions separated by two distinct p-n
junctions. The central region is called the base.
• It may be p-type or n-type semiconductor. The
two outer regions are called emitter and
collector.
• The npn transistor is constructed using n type
material as the emitter and collector while the
base is made of p type material.
• The pnp transistor is constructed using p type
material as the emitter and collector while the
base is made of n type.
The function of each element is as
follows
•The emitter provides the majority carriers
necessary to support current flow.
•The base controls the flow of the majority carriers
within all elements of the transistor.
•The collector supports the majority of the current
flow in the transistor. In most cases, the current
that flows through the collector accomplishes the
work done by a transistor.
 SCHEMATIC REPRESENTATION

• In npn transistor , the arrows points away from

the base. In this device electrons flow from the
emitter into the base and hence the current
flows from the base to the emitter.
• In the pnp transistor , the arrow points towards
the base. The holes flow from the emitter into
the base and current flows from the emitter into
the base.
 Biasing the transistor

The two junctions of a transistor can be biases in

four different ways.
1.Both the junctions may be forward biased. It
causes large currents to flow across the junctions.
The transistor is said to be operating in saturation
region.
2.Both the junctions may be reversed biased. Very
small currents flow through the junctions. The
transistor is said to be in cut-off region.
3.EB-junction may be reversed biased and CB-
junction forward biased. The transistor is said to
operate in an inverted mode.
4.EB-junction may be forward biased and CB-
junction reversed biased. Such biasing
arrangement causes a large current to flow
across the EB-junction as well as CB-junction.
With such biasing, the transistor is said to
operate in active region or normal mode. We
are interested in the particular biasing where
the transistor operates in active region.
 Role of Emitter, Base and Collector

1. Base:
•Base is lightly doped: If base region is heavily
doped, more holes would be present in the base
and the incoming electrons would have more
chance of undergoing recombination. The number
of electrons flowing into the collector would have
thus decreased. It leads to lesser collector current
and more base current. To reduce this possibility,
base region is lightly doped.
•Base region is made narrow: It enables the
electrons injected into base to quickly
diffuse and come under the action of electric
field due to reverse bias across junction,
which sweeps them into the collector, thus,
the chance of electrons recombining with
holes and causing a base current is
eliminated.
2. Emitter: Emitter is heavily doped: In a
transistor, the emitter is the source of
current. It is required that a maximum of the
majority carriers is injected into the base so
that the emitter current IE will be large. The
function of the emitter is to provide charge
carriers in large numbers. Hence emitter is
heavily doped compared to base and
collector.
3. Collector: Collector is wider .Collector
current is produced by minority carriers.
Current by minority carriers is a drift current
and requires only the presence of electric
field acting in a favourable direction.
Whatever may be the strength of the electric
field, minority carriers are accelerated into
the collector region. The minority carriers
are in fact rolling down the barrier.
Whether the barrier is high or low it does
not matter for rolling down it. The minority
carriers rolling down the high potential
barrier acquire large kinetic energy. They
produce large amount of heat while
transferring part of their energy to the lattice
through collisions. In order to dissipate away
the heat, the collector region is made larger.
 Working

1. Formation of Depletion Regions

Each transistor has two p-n junctions. The
junction that separates the base and the
emitter is called the emitter-base junction
(EB) and the one separating the base the
collector is called the collector-base junction
(CB). Each transistor is actually one piece of
crystalline material that has been doped to
create the three elements.
2. The two p-n junctions can be viewed as
two diodes. Therefore, a transistor may be
regarded as two p-n junction diodes
arranged back-back with the base being
common to both the diodes. The built-in
barrier voltages across the two depletion
layers are the same and will be of the order
of 0.7 V in case of silicon transistor.
 Transistor Action
The emitter-base junction is forward biased. Hence, the
potential barrier at the junction gets lowered and majority
carriers diffuse in large number across the junction.
Electron current is made larger than the hole current by
doping the base region lightly. Consequently, the emitter
current is practically due to electrons flowing from emitter
to base.Under forward bias, an intense injection of
electrons into base region takes place and as a result the
electron concentration in the base region nearer to EB
junction steeply rises to a value many times higher than the
equilibrium value.
Because of reverse bias at the CB junction,
the electron concentration in the base
region nearer to CB junction is practically
zero. Therefore, a large concentration
gradient is established for electrons in the
base region.
 Now the electrons in the base region
have two options
1. One is that they may recombine with the
holes in the base causing large base current.
But due to light doping of the base region,
sufficient number of holes is not available;
recombination cannot take place in large way.
It is necessary that recombination should take
place for the electrons to flow into the base-
emitter circuit. Since recombination is
eliminated in the base region, the base current
IB is very small.
2. As electron concentration is very high on the emitter side
and zero on the collector side of the base region, the
possibility is that electrons swiftly diffuse towards the
collector-base junction under the influence of the
concentration gradient across the base. The base region is
narrow originally and is made further narrower due to the
infiltration of depletion into the base and due to the action
of the biases applied. Owing to this electrons quickly reach
the CB junction. Once they arrive in the vicinity of the
junction they will be acted upon by the strong electric field
due to reverse bias and get swept into the collector region.
Consequently, a great majority of electrons emitted by the
emitter flow into the collector.
It causes a large reverse current IC which is nearly
equal to IE to flow across CB Junction .A small base
current IB is caused by few electrons that undergo
recombination in the base. The EB junction is
forward biased and therefore, it has low resistance,
while the CB junction is reversed biased having a
high resistance. Almost the same current flows
through the two junctions. Thus, the current is
transferred from a low resistance to higher
resistance level .
The current in a bipolar NPN transistor is the ratio
of these two currents ( IC/IB), called the DC Current
Gain of the device and is given by the symbol as
Beta, ( β).The value of β can be large up to 200 for
standard transistors, and it is this large ratio
between IC and IB that makes the bipolar NPN
transistor a useful amplifying device when used in
its active region as IB provides the input and IC
provides the output.
Note that Beta has no units as it is a ratio. Also, the
current gain of the transistor from the Collector
terminal to the Emitter terminal, IC/IE, is called
Alpha, (α), and is a function of the transistor itself
(electrons diffusing across the junction). As the
emitter current IE is the sum of a very small base
current plus a very large collector current, the
value of alpha (α), is very close to unity, and for a
typical low-power signal transistor this value ranges
from about 0.950 to 0.999.
 Application of transistors

TRANSISTORS AS AMPLIFIER
•Apart from working as switches, transistors
work as an amplifier as well, taking tiny
electric currents, and producing a much
higher current output at the other end. Such
transistors are commonly found in products
such as hearing aids, radio, etc.
•The low resistance in input circuit, lets any small
change in input signal to result in an appreciable
change in the output. The emitter current caused
by the input signal contributes the collector
current, which when flows through the load
resistor RL, results in a large voltage drop across it.
Thus a small input voltage results in a large output
voltage, which shows that the transistor works as
an amplifier .Transistor As a Switch.
•As a transistor switch, it operates in two regions and those
are Saturation Region (fully-ON) and the Cut-off Region
(fully-OFF)
 •Cut-off Region
 •The operating conditions of the transistor are zero input
base current (IB =0),zero output collector current(IC=0),
And maximum collector voltage (VCE) which Results in a
large depletion layer and no current flowing through the
device. Saturation Region.
•In this region, the transistor will be biased so that
the maximum amount of base current(IB) is
applied, resulting in maximum collector
current(IC=VCC/RL) and then resulting in the
minimum collector-emitter voltage(VCE~ 0) drop.
At this condition, the depletion layer becomes as
small as the possible and maximum current flowing
through the transistor. Therefore the transistor is
switched “Fully-ON”.
 Bibliography

•A Textbook of Engineering Physics Dr.M.N.Avadhanulu,

Dr.P.G. Kshirsagar
•https://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/transistor/
tran_2.html
•https://www.circuitstoday.com/the-story-history-of-
transistor-invention
•https://wiki.analog.com/university/courses/
engineering_discovery/lab_9#:~:text=Transistors%20are
%2C%20for%20th%20most,the%20power%20of
%20electrical%20signals.&text=The%20missing
%20electrons%20are%20referred,therey%20produce%20an
%20electrical%20current