Chapter 3: Bipolar Junction Transistors (BJTs)

Adersh Miglani
Adersh.Miglani@gmail.com
I. INTRODUCTION
1) The electrons and holes contribute to the current-conduction process in BJTs.
2) Basic principle involved in BJT is that the voltage between two terminals controls the current owing in the third terminal.
In this way, the three ternimal device can be used to realize a controlled source which is the basis of amplier design.
The control signal can be used to control the current in the third terminal from zero to a large value, thus allowing the
device to act as a switch that is the basis for the logic inverter.
3) BJT is preferred in very high frequency applications such as radio-circuits (RF).
4) Bipolar transistors can be combined with MOSFETs to create innovative circuits that take advantage of high input
impedance and low power operation of MOSFETs and the very high frequency operation and high current driving
capability of bipolar transistors. The resulting technology is known as BiCMOS or BiMOS.
5) By the end of this chapter, we should be able to perform rst-order analysis of transistor circuits and to design single
stage transistor ampliers and simple logic circuits.
II. DEVICE STRUCTURE AND PHYSICAL OPERATION
A. Simplied Structure and Modes of Operation
1) Active Mode: The emitter-base-junction is forward biased and collector-base junction is reverse biased. This is also called
forward active mode. It is used when transistor is used to operate as an amplier.
2) Cut-off Mode: The emitter-base-junction is reverse biased and collector-base junction is also reverse biased. Switching
applications utilize both the cut-off and saturation modes.
3) Saturation Mode: The emitter-base-junction is forward biased and collector-base junction is also forward biased.
4) Reverse Active Mode: The emitter-base-junction is forward biased and collector-base junction is reverse biased. This
mode has very limited application. We study this from concept point of view.
B. Operation of the npn Transistor in the Active Mode
Two external voltage sources are used to establish the required bias conditions for active-mode operation.
1) The voltage V
BE
causes the p-type base to be higher in potential than the n-type emitter, thus forward biasing the
emitter-base-junction. The collector base voltage V
BC
causes the n-type collector to be at a high potential than the
p-type base, thus reverse-biasing the collector-base-junction.
2) The current that ow aross the emitter-base junction will constitute the emitter current i
E
. The direction of i
E
is out of
the emitter lead, which is in the direction of hole current and opposite to the direction of electron current. The current
i
E
is sum of these two current components.
3) Since, base is small and lightly doped than emitter which is larger and highly doped, the emitter current will be dominated
by the electron components. The electron concentration in the base at the edge of base-emitter depletion region.
n
p
(0) = n
p0
e
V
BE
/V
T
where n
p0
is the thermal equilibrium value of minority carrier concentration in the base region, v
BE
is the forward bias
base-emitter voltage, and V
T
is the thermal voltage, which is approximately 26mV are room temperature.
4) The electron diffusion current in the base is given by the following expression.
I
n
= A
E
qD
n
dn
p
(x)
dx
= A
E
qD
n

n
p
(0)
W

where A
E
is the cross sectional area of the base-emitter junction, D
n
is electron diffusion coefcient, and W is the
effective width of the base region. Oberve that the negative slope of the minority-carrier concentration results in the
current ow in negative x direction.
5) The slope of the concentration prole at the emitter-base-junction is slightly higher than that at the collector-base-junction,
with the difference accounting for the small number of electrons lost in the base region through recombination.
6) Most of the electrons diffused in the base are swept across the base-collector depletion region and collected at the
collector terminal, because collector is more positive than the base. Thus i
C
= I
n
which will yield a negative value of
i
C
indicating it ows in the negative x direction.
i
C
= I
S
e
V
BE
/V
T
1
where I
S
is saturation current and is given by
I
S
= A
E
qD
n
n
p0
W
substituting n
p0
= n
2
i
/N
A
, we get
I
s
=
A
E
qD
n
n
p0
n
2
i
N
A
W
7) An important observation here is that the magnitude of i
C
is independent of v
CB
. That is, as long as the collector is
positive with repect to the base, the electrons that reach the collector side of the base region will swept into the
collector and register as collector current. If collector is not positive with respect to base, v
CB
would also affect the
collector current.
8) The saturation current I
S
is directly proportional to the emitter-base-junction area and inversely proportional the base
width. It is also a strong function of temperature. With every 5

C rise in temperature, it doubles. It is directly proportional

to the junction area, it will also be referred to as the scale current. If two transistors that are identical except that one
has an emitter-base-junction, say, twice that of the other. The ratio of their saturation currents is same as ratio of their
emitter-base-junction area. Thus, for the same v
BE
the larger device will have a collector current twice that in the smaller
devie. This concept is frequently employed in integrated-circuit design.
9) The base current is imployed to two components. The rst component i
B1
is due to the holes injected from the base
region into the emitter region. This current component is proportional to e
V
BE
/V
T
.
i
B1
=
A
E
qD
p
n
2
i
N
D
L
p
e
V
BE
/V
T
The second component of the base current i
B2
is due to the holes that have to be supplied by the external circuit
in ordrer to replinish the holes lost from the base through the recombination process. The minority carrier life time is
denoted by
b
and minority carrier charge that recombines in base is denoted by Q
n
.
i
B2
=
Q
n

b
Q
n
is computed by the area of carrier concentration in the base,
Q
n
= A
E
q
1
2
n
p
(0)W
10) The nal base current is
i
B
= i
C
/ =

I
S

e
V
BE
/V
T
where is called common-emitter current gain and is given by
=
1

Dp
Dn
N
A
N
D
W
Lp
+
1
2
W
2
Dn
b

11) For modern npn transistors, is in the range 50 to 200, but it can be as high as 1000 for special devices.
12) From the above expression, it is clear that is highly inuenced by the two factors: the width of the base region, W,
and the relative dopings of the base and emitter regions, (N
A
/N
D
). To obtain a high (which is highly desirable since
it represents a gain parameter), the base should be thin (W small and lightly doped and emitter heavily doped (making
N
A
/N
D
small). We assume that it is constant for a transistor.
13) The emitter current i
E
is equal to the sum of the collector current i
C
and the base current i
B
; that is,
i
E
= i
C
+i
B
= i
C
+
i
C

=
+ 1

i
C
=
+ 1

I
S
e
V
BE
/V
T
=

+ 1
, =

1
i
C
= i
E
i
E
= (I
S
/)e
V
BE
/V
T
where is called common base current gain.
2
14) The forward bias voltage V
BE
causes an exponentially related current i
C
to ow in the collector terminal. The collector
current i
C
is independent of the value of the collector voltage as long as the collector-base junction remains reverse-
biased; that is, v
CB
0. Thus, collector terminal behaves as an ideal constant-current source where the value of the
current is determined by v
BE
.
15) The example large-signal models of BJT are given in gure 3.5. The explanation of same are given on pg. 173.
C. Structure of actual transistors
1) The collector virtually surrounds the emitter region so that most of the injected electrons in base are collected by collector
region. This would make higher and close to unity. Such device is not symmetrical, and thus the emitter and collector
cannot be interchanged. The normal values of
R
is in the range of 0.01 and 0.5.
D. Ebers-Moll (EM) Model
Skipped: Refer the book
E. Operation in saturation mode
Skipped: Refer the book
F. PNP transistor
Skipped: Refer the book
III. CURRENT-VOLTAGE CHARACTERISTICS
3