History of Bipolar Junction Transistors

The transistor (BJT) was not the first three terminal

devices. Before transistors came into existence
vacuum tubes were used. In electronics, vacuum tube
triodes were used almost for half a century before the
BJTs. The light bulb invented by Thomas Edison in
the early 1880s was one of the first uses of vacuum
tubes for any electrical applications. The vacuum tube
triodes were used in various computer designs till
early 1950s. But the major problem was, as the
complication of the circuits increased more and more
triodes were required to be integrated. In those days
a large computer would have many racks filled with
tubes which almost occupied a large room. Size was
not the only problem, the tubes consumed large
power and sometimes would leak hence were less
reliable.

Hence, scientists and engineers started thinking of

ways to make some other kind of three terminal
devices. So instead of controlling an electron in
vacuum they begin to think of ways to control it in
solid materials. In 1947, two physicists John Bardeen
and Walter Brattain working at the Bell laboratories
found that by making two point contacts very close to
one another, they could actually make a three
terminal device. Thus the first point contact transistor
was made by using germanium, paper clip and razor
blades. Figure below shows a replica of the same.
Than Shockley developed the junction transistor (BJT)
by pressing together thin slices of different
semiconductor materials. The transistors replaced the
vacuum tubes and made a dramatic change in the

world of electronics. Bardeen and Brattain together

with William Shockley were horned by the Nobel Prize
in Physics in 1956 for the invention of the transistor
effect. For many years transistors were manufactured
as individual components until late 1950s, after which
integrated circuits (ICs) came into existence which
placed all components on one single chip. This is just
one portion of an endless history of BJT.

Applications of Bipolar Junction Transistor

There are two types of applications of bipolar

junction transistor, switching and amplification.

Transistor as a Switch
For switching applications transistor is biased to
operate in the saturation or cutoff region. Transistor in
cutoff region will act as an open switching whereas in

saturation will act as a closed switch.

Open Switch

In the cutoff region (both

junctions are reversed biased) the voltage across the
CE junction is very high. The input voltage is zero so
both base and collector currents are zero, hence the

resistance offered by the BJT is very high (ideally

infinite).
Closed Switch

In saturation (both junctions are forward biased) a

high input voltage is applied to the base. The value of
base resistance is adjusted such that a large base
current flows. There is a small voltage drop across the
collector emitter junction of the order of 0.05 to 0.2V
and collector current is very large. A very small
voltage drop takes place across the BJT and it can be
said to be equivalent to a closed switch.

BJT as Amplifier
Single Stage RC Coupled CE Amplifier
The figure shows a single stage CE amplifier. C and C
are coupling capacitors, they are used for blocking the
dc component and passing only ac part they also
ensure that the dc basing conditions of the BJT
remains unchanged even after input is applied. C is
the bypass capacitor which increases the voltage gain
and bypasses the R resistor for ac signals.
1

The BJT is biased in the active region using the

necessary biasing components. The Q point is made
stable in the active region of the transistor. When
input is applied as shown below the base current
starts to vary up and down, hence collector current
also varies as IC = IB. Therefore voltage across R3
varies as the collector current is passing through it.
Voltage across R3 is the amplified one and is 180
apart from the input signal. Thus voltage across R3 is
coupled to the load and amplification has taken place.
If the Q point is maintained to be at the centre of the
load very less or no waveform distortion will take
place. The voltage as well as current gain of the CE
amplifier is high (gain is the factor by which the
voltage of current increases from input to output). It
is commonly used in radios and as low frequency
voltage amplifier.

To further increase the gain multistage amplifiers are

used. They are connected via capacitor, electrical
transformer, R-L or directly coupled depending on the
application. The overall gain is the product of gains of
individual stages. Figure below shows a two stage CE
amplifier.