EGE217: Electronics 1

Lecturer: Siti Hamimah Sh. Ismail

January 2009

ELECTRONICS 1

CHAPTER 4: BIPOLAR JUNCTION

TRANSISTOR

Introduction
A bipolar junction transistor is a semiconductor device that can
amplify electronic signal such as radio and television signals. This
chapter introduces the bipolar transistor, the kind that uses both free
electrons and holes. The word bipolar means "two polarities".

4.1 Transistor Construction

A transistor has three doped regions as shown in figure below:

Figure 1

The bottom region is called the emitter, the middle region is the base
and the top region is the collector. The transistor in figure above is an
npn device, because there is a p region between two n regions.
Transistors are also manufactured as pnp devices, but for now we will
concentrate on npn first.

Note that the emitter is heavily doped, the base is lightly doped and
the collector is intermediate between the heavy doping of the emitter
and the light doping of the base.

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EGE217: Electronics 1
Lecturer: Siti Hamimah Sh. Ismail
January 2009
4.2 The Biased Transistor
Now lets look at what happen when the transistor is connected to an
external voltage source as in figure below:

Figure 2

The minus signs represent free electrons.

The job of heavily doped emitter: to emit its free electrons into the
base.

The job of lightly doped base: to pass emitter-injected electrons onto

the collector.

4.2.1Base Electrons

At the instant that the forward bias is applied to the emitter diode, the
electrons in the emitter have not yet entered the base region. If V BB is
greater than the emitter-base barrier potential, emitter electrons will
enter the base region.

Theoretically, these free electrons can flow either to the left and out of
the base to RB or flow into the collector. But, actually, most of the free
electrons will move to the collector. This is because:

1. The base is lightly doped. Means that the free electrons have a long
lifetime in the base region.
2. The base is very thin. Means that the free electrons have a very
short distance to go to reach the collector.

Thus, most of the free electrons are passed to the collector. Only a few
free electrons will recombine with holes in the lightly doped base.
Then as valence electrons, they will flow through the base resistor to
the positive side of the VBB supply.

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EGE217: Electronics 1
Lecturer: Siti Hamimah Sh. Ismail
January 2009

4.2.2 Collector Electrons

Once the free electrons are in the collector, they feel the attraction of
the VCC source voltage. Because of this, the free electrons flow through
the collector and through RC until they reach the positive terminal of
the collector supply voltage.

4.3Transistor Currents

Figure 3

In figure above, we can see that there are three different currents in a
transistor:
• Emitter current IE
• Base current IB
• Collector current IC

The emitter has the largest current because it is the source of the
electrons.
From Kirchoff's current law:
I E = IC + I B

The collector current is almost as large as emitter current because

most of the emitter’s electron flow to the collector.
IC ≈ IE

The base current is very small by comparison, often is less than 1 %

of the collector current.
I B << I C
The dc alpha is defined as the dc collector current divided by the dc
emitter current:

IC
α dc =
IE

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EGE217: Electronics 1
Lecturer: Siti Hamimah Sh. Ismail
January 2009

The dc beta or current gain is defined as the ratio of the dc collector

current to the dc base current:
I
β dc = C
IB

4.4The CE Connection
There are three useful ways to connect a transistor:

• With a common emitter (CE)

• Common collector (CC) and
• Common base (CB)

In this chapter we will focus on the CE connection (the most widely

used).

4.4.1The Circuit

The common or ground side of each voltage source is connected to the

emitter. The circuit has two loops. The left loop is the base loop and
the right loop is the collector loop.

Figure 4

In the base loop: The VBB source forward-biases the emitter diode
with RB as a current limiting resistance. By changing
VBB or RB we can change the base current, and
changing the base current will change the collector
current. In other words, the base current controls
the collector currents.

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EGE217: Electronics 1
Lecturer: Siti Hamimah Sh. Ismail
January 2009
In the collector loop: VCC reverse-biases the collector diode through
RC. The collector must be positive in order to collect
most of the free electrons injected into the base.

4.4.2 The Base Curve

Now, lets take a look at the graph of IB versus VBE, as shown in figure
below:

Figure 5

Since the emitter is forward biased, we would expect to see the usual
diode graph of current versus voltage. Thus:

V BB − V BE
IB =
RB

For ideal condition, VBE = 0, with second approximation, VBE = 0.7.

Example:
Use the second approximation to calculate the base current. What is
the voltage across the base resistor? The collector current if β = 200?

Solution:

The base source voltage of 2V forward biases the emitter diode though
a current limiting resistance of 100K. Since the emitter diode has 0.7V
across it, the voltage across the base resistor is:

VB = VBB – VBE =2V – 0.7 V = 1.3V

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EGE217: Electronics 1
Lecturer: Siti Hamimah Sh. Ismail
January 2009
The current through the base resistor is:

With a current gain of 200, the collector current is:

4.4.3The Collector Curves

Now, we focus on the collector loop. We can vary VBB and VCC in figure
below to produce different transistor voltages and currents. By
measuring IC and VCE, we can get data for a graph of IC versus VCE .

Figure 6

When VCE is zero, the collector diode is not reversed biased. This is
why the graph shows a collector current of zero when VCE is zero.
When VCE increases from zero, the collector current rises sharply.
When VCE is a few tenths of a volt, the collector current becomes
almost constant and equal to 1 mA.

After the collector diode becomes reverse biased, it is gathering all the
electrons that reach its depletion layer. Further increases in VCE
cannot increase the collector current because the collector can collect
only those free electrons that the emitter injects into the base. The
number of these injected electrons depends only on the base circuit
not the collector circuit. This is why the figure shows a constant

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EGE217: Electronics 1
Lecturer: Siti Hamimah Sh. Ismail
January 2009
collector current between a VCE of less than 1V to a VCE of more than
40V.

If VCE is greater than 40V, the collector diode breaks down and normal
transistor action is lost. The transistor is not intended to operate in
the break down region.

From Kirchoff’s law:

VCE = VCC − I C RC

Thus the transistor has the power dissipation of :

PD = VCE I C

4.4.3.1 Regions of Operation

The collector curve shown in previous section, has different regions

where the action of a transistor changes.

Active Region:
• Region in the middle where VCE is between 1 and 40
V.
• Normal operation of transistor
• Emitter diode is forward biased, and the collector
diode is reversed biased.
• Collector is gathering almost all the electrons that the
emitter has sent into the base. (Changes in collector
voltage has no effect on the collector current)

Breakdown Region:
• Transistor should never operate in this region
because it will be destroyed.

Saturation Region:
• Early rising part of the curve, where VCE is between 0
V and a few tenths of a volt.
• Collector diode has insufficient positive voltage to
collect all the free electrons injected into the base.
• Base current IB is larger than normal and the current
gain β dc is smaller than normal.

Cutoff Region:
• The curve when the base current is zero (explain in
the next section), there is still a small collector
current
• The small collector current is called the collector
cutoff current.

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EGE217: Electronics 1
Lecturer: Siti Hamimah Sh. Ismail
January 2009
• This current exist due to reverse minority carrier
current and surface leakage current.

4.4.3.2Set of Collector Curves

We can plot the second curve by measuring IB and VCE for IB = 20 µA.
The curve is similar to the curve shown in section 4.4.3 except that
the collector current is 2 mA in the active region. Similarly we can plot
several curves for different base current to get a set of collector curves
as shown in figure 8.

The bottom curve, (when the base current is zero) is the cutoff region
explained before.

Note that the saturation and cutoff region are useful in digital and
computer circuits referred to as switching circuits which will be
explained in the next chapter.

4.5 Transistor Equivalent Circuit

For Ideal Approximation:

• we visualize the emitter diode as an ideal diode,

with VBE = 0.
• The collector side acts like a current source that
pumps a collector current of I C = β dc I B through
the collector resistor.

For Second Approximation:

• For silicon transistor; VBE = 0.7 V, for germanium,
VBE = 0.3V
• The base and collector current will be slightly less
than ideal values.

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