ECE111 – Analog Electronics

Sandeep Saini
Gaurav Chatterjee

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Learning Objective

● This course serves as an intermediate analog electronic course.

● The course offers a comprehensive range of fundamental
electronic device and circuit topics.
● The specific materials relate to analog electronics including
diodes, bipolar‐junction transistors (BJT), Operational
Amplifiers (Op-Amps), basic single and multistage amplifier
configurations, and integrated circuits using 555.
● This course in analog electronics offers analysis and design of
analog electronic circuits, both discrete and integrated,
required for an electronics engineer.

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Course outcomes

1. Construct circuits using PN diodes

2. Examine different BJT configurations and implement
various applications using BJTs.
3. Describe various oscillators using BJTs.
4. Analyze various techniques and practical applications
active filters using Op-Amp.
5. Differentiate and test various designing techniques and
practical applications of 555 times as multivibrators.
6. Investigate various ADC and DAC circuits.

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Books

● Text Books:
● [1] Microelectronic Circuits, A.S. Sedra & K.C. Smith, Oxford
● [2] Integrated Electronics, Jacob Millman & Christos C.
Halkias, Tata McGraw Hill
● [3] Principles of Electronics, A.P. Malvino, Tata McGraw Hill

● Reference Books:
● [1] Electronic Devices and Circuit Theory, Robert Boylestad,
Pentice Hall
● [2] Circuits, Devices and Systems, R.J Smith & R.C Dorf,
John Wiley & Sons
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Evaluation method

Item Weightage (%)

Quiz 1 10
Quiz 2 10
Quiz 3 10
Quiz 4 10
Midterm 20
Final Examination 40

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Lecture time

● Tuesday and Thursday

● 2:30 to 4:00 PM
● ECE students in LT-01
● CCE students in LT-02

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Unit - 1

● Introduction
● Orbital Theory
● Energy gap
● Intrinsic Semiconductors
● Doped Semiconductors
● Current Flow in Semiconductors
● The pn Junction
● The pn Junction with an Applied Voltage

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Lecture 01

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Orbits and energy levels

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● In the Bohr atom electrons can be found only in allowed orbits, and
these allowed orbits are at different energies.

● The orbits are analogous to a set of stairs in which the gravitational

potential energy is different for each step and in which a ball can be
found on any step but never in between.

● The laws of quantum mechanics describe the process by which

electrons can move from one allowed orbit, or energy level, to
another.

● This process is called a quantum leap or quantum jump, and it has no

analog in the macroscopic world. 10
Orbital shapes

● There are four different kinds of orbitals, denoted s, p, d and

f each with a different shape.

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Pauli Exclusion Principle

● The Pauli exclusion principle states that in a single atom no

two electrons will have an identical set or the same quantum
numbers (n, l, ml, and ms). To put it in simple terms, every
electron should have or be in its own unique state (singlet
state). There are two salient rules that the Pauli Exclusion
Principle follows:

● Only two electrons can occupy the same orbital.

● The two electrons that are present in the same orbital must
have opposite spins or they should be antiparallel.
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Energy gap

● In solid-state physics, a band gap, also called an energy

gap, is an energy range in a solid where no electronic states
can exist.

● It is the energy required to promote a valence electron bound

to an atom to become a conduction electron, which is free to
move within the crystal lattice and serve as a charge carrier
to conduct electric current.

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Band gap/ Energy gap
● In semiconductors and insulators, electrons are confined to a
number of bands of energy, and forbidden from other regions
because there are no allowable electronic states for them to
occupy.
● The term "band gap" refers to the energy difference between the
top of the valence band and the bottom of the conduction band.
● Electrons are able to jump from one band to another.
● However, in order for a valence band electron to be promoted to
the conduction band, it requires a specific minimum amount of
energy for the transition.
● This required energy is an intrinsic characteristic of the solid
material. Electrons can gain enough energy to jump to the
conduction band by absorbing either a phonon (heat) or a
photon (light).

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Conductors

● A conductor is a type of material that allows the electric current to

flow through it i.e. it possesses least resistance in the path of free
electrons.
● In case of conductor, the valance and conduction bands overlap.
● Due to this overlapping, a small potential difference across a
conductor causes the free electrons to constitute electric current.

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Insulators

● An insulator is type of material that does not allow the electric

current to pass through it, due to its high electrical resistance.
● In the insulators, the energy gap between valance and
conduction bands is very large (about 15 eV).
● Therefore, a very high electric field is required to push the
valance electrons to the conduction band.

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Semiconductors

● The semiconductors are the materials having conductivity in-between

conductors and insulators.
● In a semiconductor, the forbidden energy gap between valance and
conduction bands is very small (about 1 eV) as compared to insulators.
● Therefore, a smaller electric field (smaller than insulators but greater
than conductors) is required to push the free electrons from valance
band to the conduction band.

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Semiconductors

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Introduction

● We briefly introduce the properties and physics of

semiconductors.
● The objective is to provide a basis for understanding the
physical operation of diodes and transistors in order to
enable their effective use in the design of circuits.
● Although many of the concepts studied in this chapter apply
to semiconductor materials in general, our treatment is
heavily biased toward silicon, simply because it is the
material used in the vast majority of microelectronic circuits.

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Intrinsic Semiconductors

● There are two kinds of semiconductors:

○ single-element semiconductors, such as germanium and silicon, which
are in group IV in the periodic table;
○ and compound semiconductors, such as gallium-arsenide, which are
formed by combining elements from groups III and V or groups II and
VI
● A silicon atom has four valence electrons, and thus it
requires another four to complete its outermost shell.
● This is achieved by sharing one of its valence electrons with
each of its four neighboring atoms.
● Each pair of shared electrons forms a covalent bond.

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Recombination

● Thermal generation results in free electrons and holes in equal

numbers and hence equal concentrations, where concentration
refers to the number of charge carriers per unit volume (cm 3).
● The free electrons and holes move randomly through the silicon
crystal structure, and in the process some electrons may fill
some of the holes. This process, called recombination.
● The recombination rate is proportional to the number of free
electrons and holes, which in turn is determined by the thermal
generation rate.

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Two-dimensional representation of the silicon crystal

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● The thermal generation rate is a strong function of
temperature.
● In thermal equilibrium, the recombination rate is equal to
the generation rate, and one can conclude that the
concentration of free electrons n is equal to the
concentration of holes p.

n = p = ni … (1)

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free electrons and holes in a unit volume (ni)

… (2)

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Example

● Calculate the value of ni for silicon at room temperature (T

300 K).
● Answer:

● Although this number seems large, to place it into context

note that silicon has 5 × 1022 atoms/cm3.
● Thus at room temperature only one in about 5 × 1012 atoms is
ionized and contributing a free electron and a hole! 25
● It is useful for future purposes to express the product of the
hole and free-electron concentration as
p*n = ni2 (3)

● Where for silicon at room temperature, ni=1.5×1010/cm3.

● This relationship extends to extrinsic or doped silicon as
well.

● Note that 1 eV = 1.6×10−19 J.

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Example 2

● Calculate the intrinsic carrier density ni for silicon at T = 50

K and 350 K.

● Answer:
● 9.6×10−39/cm3;
● 4.15×1011/cm3

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Doped Semiconductors

● The intrinsic silicon crystal described above has equal

concentrations of free electrons and holes.
● A method was developed to change the carrier concentration
● in a semiconductor crystal substantially and in a precisely
controlled manner.
● This process is known as doping, and the resulting silicon is
referred to as doped silicon.

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Types of doped semiconductors

● To increase the concentration of free electrons, n, silicon is

doped with an element with a valence of 5, such as
phosphorus.
● The resulting doped silicon is then said to be of n type.

● To increase the concentration of holes, p, silicon is doped

with an element having a valence of 3, such as boron, and the
resulting doped silicon is said to be of p type

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Donor atoms

● Since the phosphorus atom has five electrons in its outer shell,
four of these electrons form covalent bonds with the
neighboring atoms, and the fifth electron becomes a free
electron.
● Thus each phosphorus atom donates a free electron to the
silicon crystal, and the phosphorus impurity is called a donor.
● It should be clear, though, that no holes are generated by this
process.
● The net positive charge associated with the phosphorus atom is
a bound charge that does not move through the crystal.

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N type semiconductor

● If the concentration of donor atoms is N D, where ND is usually much greater

than ni, the concentration of free electrons in the n-type silicon will be
nn ≈ N D … (4)

● where the subscript n denotes n-type silicon.

● Thus nn is determined by the doping concentration and not by temperature.
● This is not the case, however, for the hole concentration.
● All the holes in the n-type silicon are those generated by thermal ionization.
● Their concentration pn is found by the relationship (pn = ni2)
● Thus for n-type silicon
pnnn = ni2 … (5)

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N type semiconductor

● Substituting nn we can get

… (6)

● Thus pn will have the same dependence on temperature as

that of ni2.
● Finally, we note that in n-type silicon the concentration of
free electrons nn will be much larger than that of holes.
● Hence electrons are said to be the majority charge carriers
and holes the minority charge carriers in n-type silicon.

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Silicon crystal with pentavalent doping

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P type semiconductor

● To obtain p-type silicon in which holes are the majority

charge carriers, a trivalent impurity such as boron is used.
● Note that the boron atoms replace some of the silicon atoms
in the silicon crystal structure.
● Since each boron atom has three electrons in its outer shell,
it accepts an electron from a neighboring atom, thus forming
covalent bonds.
● The result is a hole in the neighboring atom and a bound
negative charge at the acceptor (boron) atom.

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P type semiconductor

● If the acceptor doping concentration is NA, where NA >> ni, the hole
concentration becomes
p p ≈ NA .. (7)
● where the subscript p denotes p-type silicon.
● Thus, here the majority carriers are holes and their concentration is
determined by NA.
● The concentration of minority electrons is
ppnp = ni2 … (8)

● Substituting pp we can get

… (9)
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Silicon crystal doped with Boron

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Example

● Consider an n-type silicon for which the dopant

concentration ND = 1017/cm3. Find the electron and hole
concentrations at T = 300 K.

● Answer:

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Solution

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Practice questions

1. Consider an n-type silicon for which the dopant concentration

ND = 1017/cm3. Find the electron and hole concentrations at 350
K. You may use the value of ni at T = 350 K found in earlier
example.
● Ans. nn = 1017/cm3, pn = 1.72 ×106/cm3

2. For a silicon crystal doped with boron, what must N A be if at T

= 300 K the electron concentration drops below the intrinsic
level by a factor of 106?
● Ans. NA = 1.5×1016/cm3
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