EE212

Lab 4

TITLE: BIPOLAR JUNCTION TRANSISTOR

AIM

To identify the three terminals of a BJT without a datasheet and to determine

the collector characteristics curve of a BJT.

THEORY
The transistor is a two way junction with three terminal semiconductor
devices which have three regions called the emitter region, the collector
region and the base region. The three regions namely the base, collector and
emitter are the Bipolar Junction Transistor (BJT) regions. Between these
regions are the junctions made up of the types of transistors. There are two
types of transistors. An npn transistor and an pnp transistor. An npn
transistor has an n type emitter, a p type base and an n type collector. Whilst
for a pnp transistor, it has an p type emitter, an n type base and a p type
collector. The base region is thin and lightly doped, the emitter is heavily
doped and the collector is moderately doped and is the largest. The current
in transistor takes place due to both charge carriers- that is the electrons and
the holes and hence they are called BJT (Bipolar Junction Transistors).

Figure 1: npn and pnp transistor regions and symbols

The transistors are also used as switch in Cut-off (OFF) and saturation (ON)
regions and as an amplifier in Active regions.
INSTRUMENTS

Power supply, oscilloscope, signal generator and multimeter.

Diode: 1x1N4004 silicon
Resisters: 1x1k, 1x10k and 1x100k
BJT: 1x2N2222
OC installed with Circuit Maker.
METHODOLOGY
This experiment consists of three parts.

PART I Identification of BJT Terminals.

- The datasheet for the BJT was downloaded from the internet and it was
used to identify the terminals of the BJT. Results were recorded after
identifying the terminals of the BJT.
- After identifying the terminals of the BJT, it was further differentiated
whether it was an npn or pnp transistor type.
- After that, a BJT models on both npn and pnp types was drawn and
thus using the diode test of a multimeter, the anode and the cathode
of the rectifier was identified and also the barrier potential of the circuit
was also identified.
- Using the multimeter, the base terminal was identified from the BJT
using the two diodes models of the npn and pnp drawn earlier.
- After that, the voltage drops for the remaining terminals were also
measured using the multimeter and the results were tabulated in the
results sheet.
- Later a rule was derived from the information of the BJT and the
datasheet to identify the three terminals of the BJT without using the
datasheet.

PART II BJT Collector Characteristics Curve.

- The circuit shown below was connected using the Circuit Maker to
determine the collector characteristics.

Fi
gure 2: Circuit used to determine the collect characteristics.
 - The base current IB was measured using the multimeter and the supply
voltage of VBB was increased from 0V until the base current is
approximately 20. The values for VBB was measured and recorded in
the results sheet.
- The multimeter was then connected and the voltage across the
collector and emitter VCE was measured.
- The value of the VBB found earlier was set and then VCC was adjusted
from increments of 0.5V from 0.0 to 10.0V. The values of VCE was
measured and recorded.
- The multimeter was connected and the collector current IC was
measured. The voltage across RC was measured as the VCE was
measured alternatively and hence those measured values were used to
calculate the IC.
- A graph of V-I characteristics with IC on the y-axis and VCE on the x-axis
was plotted using excel.
- Again the above steps were repeated for IB = 40. From the two
plotted graphs the values for the DC of the BJT was determined.
- DC load line was drawn on the plotted graph and Q-points were
obtained.

PART III Simulation

- A Circuit Marker was used to simulate the circuit and the values of the
cutoff and saturation current was compared for the plotted graph.
DISCUSSION

The Bipolar Junction Transistor is an extremely common electronic device to

all forms of electronic circuits. It is very useful because it can be used for
applications such as amplifier, switches, a buffer, an oscilloscope, nonlinear
circuit and many more applications now a days. BJT is made of the P type
and the N type semiconductor materials and it is made up of three terminal
devices. These terminals are called the Base region, the collector region and
the Emitter region. Also BJT consists of two types of transistors called the
NPN transistor type and the PNP transistor type. Below are the simple models
of these two types of the transistor.

The arrows on each of the transistors indicate the direction of the DC current
which flow from either the NPN type or the PNP transistor type. The base
current (Ib) however is a very small current measured in microamps (A) and
for the collector current (Ic) and emitter current (Ie), they are much larger
then base current and are measured in milliamps (mA). The base current for
the PNP transistor flows out of the transistor and for the NPN transistor, its
base current flows into the transistor. Hence, the collector current and the
emitter current both flows in the same direction however, the directions of
their current is determine by the direction of the arrows shown by the two
types of the transistors either it can be a NPN type or a PNP type transistor.
CONCLUSION

To conclude, all three terminals of BJT were identified after this lab has been
carried out and they are called the base region, collector region and emitter
region. This was done without the use of datasheet. That is, to identify the
three terminals of the transistor, the section one side is called the emitter
and the opposite side is called the collector. The middle section is called the
base. Hence, the collector characteristics curve of BJT was determine for this
lab from two graphs plotted for different base currents.
REFERENCE

J. David Irwin, Basic Engineering Circuit Analysis, (7th Edition), John Wiley and
Sons Inc, 2002

Neudeck, G.W., 1989. The bipolar junction transistor (Vol. 3). Prentice Hall.

Thomas L. Floyd, Principles Of Electric Circuits: Electron Flow Version, (3rd

Edition), Macmillan Publishing Company, New York, 1993