History

The bipolar point-contact transistor was invented in December 1947 at the Bell Telephone
Laboratories by John Bardeen and Walter Brattain under the direction of William Shockley. The
junction version known as the bipolar junction transistor (BJT), invented by Shockley in 1948 was for
three decades the device of choice in the design of discrete and integrated circuits. Nowadays, the
use of the BJT has declined in favor of CMOS technology in the design of digital integrated circuits.
The incidental low performance BJTs inherent in CMOS ICs, however, are often utilized as bandgap
voltage reference, silicon bandgap temperature sensor and to handle electrostatic discharge.

Transistor
A transistor is a semiconductor device used to amplify or switch electronic signals and electrical
power. It is composed of semiconductor material usually with at least three terminals for connection
to an external circuit. A voltage or current applied to one pair of the transistor's terminals controls the
current through another pair of terminals. Because the controlled (output) power can be higher than
the controlling (input) power, a transistor can amplify a signal. Today, some transistors are packaged
individually, but many more are found embedded in integrated circuits.
The transistor is the fundamental building block of modern electronic devices, and is ubiquitous in
modern electronic systems. Julius Edgar Lilienfeldpatented a field-effect transistor in 1926 but it was
not possible to actually construct a working device at that time. The first practically implemented
device was a point-contact transistor invented in 1947 by American physicists John Bardeen, Walter
Brattain, and William Shockley. The transistor revolutionized the field of electronics, and paved the
way for smaller and cheaper radios, calculators, and computers, among other things. The transistor
is on the list of IEEE milestones in electronics, and Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley shared the
1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for their achievement.

Transistor Construction
A transistor is constructed by placing a oppositely doped semiconductor material between two
similarly doped semiconductors. Or placing n-type material between two p-type material which forms
the pnp-transistor or by placing a p-type material between two n-type semiconductor which forms
npn-transistor.

The above diagram shows the schematic construction of a PNP transistor. As you can see an N-type
silicon (green layer) is sandwiched between two P type materials (red layer). The left part is
indicated by P+ which means its highly doped P-type material. This highly doped portion is
called Emitter that is the piece of semiconductor that supplies majority carriers for the transistor to
function. At the extreme right is moderately doped P type material which is called as the Collector.
This portion collects the majority charge carriers that is been emitted by Emitter and that manage to
cross the collector. The middle region is denoted by n- because it's doped with N-type impurities.
The minus'-' sign indicates it's doped very very less compared to the emitter and collector. The
middle region is called the Base, and it's this region that serves as a gate, regulating flow of charge
from Emitter to collector.
The doping of base is just one tenth of that of collector. In a real transistor, the width of base is
very thin. The total width of the transistor will be 150 times that of the width of the base.
In a similar way by sandwiching a lightly doped P region between highly and moderately doped
N region we get a NPN transistor as shown below.

Transistor Operation
The transistor can be considered as two p-n junctions that are placed back to back. The structure has
two PN junctions with a narrow base region between the two outlying areas for the collector and
emitter.
In normal operation, the base emitter junction is forward biased and the base collector junction is
reverse biased. When a current flows through the base emitter junction, a current also flows in the
collector circuit. This is larger and proportional to the one in the base circuit. In order to explain the
way in which this happens, the example of an n-p-n transistor is taken. The same principles are used
for the p-n-p transistor except that the current carrier is holes rather than electrons and the voltages
are reversed.

Operation of a bipolar junction transistor

The emitter in the n-p-n device is made of n-type material and here the majority carriers are electrons.
When the base emitter junction is forward biased the electrons move from the n-type region towards
the p-type region and the holes move towards the n-type region. When they reach each other they
combine enabling a current to flow across the junction. When the junction is reverse biased the holes
and electrons move away from one another resulting in a depletion region between the two areas and
no current flows.
When a current flows between the base and emitter, electrons leave the emitter and flow into the base.
Normally the electrons would combine when they reach this area. However the doping level in this
region is very low and the base is also very thin. This means the most of the electrons are able to
travel across this region without recombining with the holes. As a result the electrons migrate towards
the collector, because they are attracted by the positive potential. In this way they are able to flow
across what is effectively a reverse biased junction, and current flows in the collector circuit.
It is found that the collector current is significantly higher than the base current, and because the
proportion of electrons combining with holes remains the same the collector current is always
proportional to the base current. In other words varying the base current varies the collector current.
The ratio of the base to collector current is given the Greek symbol . Typically the ratio may be
between 50 and 500 for a small signal transistor. This means that the collector current will be between
50 and 500 times that flowing in the base. For high power transistors the value of B is likely to be
smaller, with figures of 20 not being unusual.

Summary of transistor junction bias scenarios

In looking at how a transistor works, the normal operation is to have the base emitter junction forward
biased and the base collector junction reverse biased. Other scenarios are possible and the biasing
arrangements are summarised below for both NPN and PNP variants.

NPN TRANSISTOR BIAS & OPERATION SUMMARY

ELECTRODE BASE EMITTER COLLECTOR TRANSISTOR OPERATION

VOLTAGES BASE

E<B<C Forward Reverse Forward active. This is the normal mode for
linear amplifiers.

E<B>C Forward Forward Saturation, i.e. the transistor is switched

hard on. This will occur in switching circuits

E>B<C Reverse Reverse Cut-off. This occurs when the transistor is

switched hard off and no collector current
flows.

E>B>C Reverse Forward Reverse active. This mode is not normally

used as it effectively reverses the emitter
and collector connections. Lower
performance levels are achieved.
Transistor Testing
The diode test using an analogue multimeter can be extended to give a simple and straightforward
confidence check for bipolar transistors. Again the test using a multimeter only provides a confidence
check that the device has not blown, but it is still very useful.

The test relies on the fact that a transistor can be considered to comprise of two back to back diodes,
and by performing the diode test between the base and collector and the base and emitter of the
transistor using an analogue multimeter, the basic integrity of the transistor can be ascertained.

Transistor equivalent circuit with diodes for multimeter test.

It should be noted that a transistor cannot be functionally replicated using two separate diodes
because the operation of the transistor depends upon the base which is the junction of the two diodes,
being one physical layer, and also very thin.

Step by step instructions:

The instructions are given primarily for an NPN transistor as these are the most common types in use.
The variations are shown for PNP varieties - these are indicated in brackets (.. .. ..):

1. Set the meter to its ohms range - any range should do, but the middle ohms range if several are
available is probably best.
2. Connect the base terminal of the transistor to the terminal marked positive (usually coloured red)
on the multimeter
3. Connect the terminal marked negative or common (usually coloured black) to the collector and
measure the resistance. It should read open circuit (there should be a deflection for a PNP
transistor).
4. With the terminal marked positive still connected to the base, repeat the measurement with the
positive terminal connected to the emitter. The reading should again read open circuit (the
multimeter should deflect for a PNP transistor).
5. Now reverse the connection to the base of the transistor, this time connecting the negative or
common (black) terminal of the analogue test meter to the base of the transistor.
6. Connect the terminal marked positive, first to the collector and measure the resistance. Then take
it to the emitter. In both cases the meter should deflect (indicate open circuit for a PNP transistor).
7. It is next necessary to connect the meter negative or common to the collector and meter positive
to the emitter. Check that the meter reads open circuit. (The meter should read open circuit for both
NPN and PNP types.
8. Now reverse the connections so that the meter negative or common is connected to the emitter
and meter positive to the collector. Check again that the meter reads open circuit.
9. If the transistor passes all the tests then it is basically functional and all the junctions are intact.