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Introduction EE212 Lab 4

The document discusses the Bipolar Junction Transistor (BJT), including its origins and development in the mid-20th century. It describes how BJTs work by injecting and amplifying minority carriers through the emitter, base, and collector regions. BJTs are effective for signal amplification and serve as vital components in many electronic circuits due to their gain, bandwidth, and performance characteristics.

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Naayaab Sarfraaz
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17 views

Introduction EE212 Lab 4

The document discusses the Bipolar Junction Transistor (BJT), including its origins and development in the mid-20th century. It describes how BJTs work by injecting and amplifying minority carriers through the emitter, base, and collector regions. BJTs are effective for signal amplification and serve as vital components in many electronic circuits due to their gain, bandwidth, and performance characteristics.

Uploaded by

Naayaab Sarfraaz
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Introduction

A semiconductor device having three terminals which switch as well as boost electrical signals is referred
to as a Bipolar Junction Transistor (BJT). It is composed of three, tightly spaced, doped semiconductor
regions: emitter, base, and collector. The emitter-base junction (EB junction) and the collector-base
junction (CB junction) are the two diode junctions created by these regions placed back-to-back. Most
carriers (holes in the PNP transistor, electrons in the NPN transistor) originate from the emitter, whereas
base controls the movement of carriers from emitter and collector. The majority carriers that pass
through the base are gathered by the collector [1].

The origins of BJTs extends to the middle of the 20th century, amid an intense attempt to produce
vacuum tube alternatives for electronic amplification. Engineers at Bell Laboratories led by John
Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley developed the point-contact transistor (the first
transistor) in 1947 which utilized metal connections with germanium crystals. In 1949, Shockley, a
physics Nobel laureate, proposed the idea of bipolar junction transistors and then the foundation for the
establishment of the present BJT was laid out by his groundbreaking research [2].

The concept of BJTs involves injection and amplification of minority carriers within semiconductor
materials. A tiny forward bias voltage across the EB junction promotes the injection of holes (PNP
transistor) or electrons (NPN transistor) into the base region. Minority carriers (holes/electrons) could
easily flow towards collector due to the thin, lightly doped base region. But the majority of carriers
combine within the base, producing base current, as a consequence of carrier concentration difference
between emitter and base. During typical operating conditions, collector-base junction is reverse-biased
thus presents a high resistance barrier towards majority carriers. This barrier ensures that injected
minority carriers generated by the emitter make up the majority of carriers that reach the collector. BJTs
are excellent for signal amplification as a slight variation in base current can result in an enormous shift
in collector current [1].

The enhanced precision and efficiency which BJTs modify and amplify electrical signals contributes to
their effectiveness. It originates from regulated conductivity characteristics which semiconductor
materials typically exhibit in response to outside forces like voltage and current. When opposed to other
semiconductor devices, BJTs offer better performance statistics due to their substantial gain, low noise,
and broad bandwidth characteristics. They serve as vital parts of an extensive variety of electronic
circuits, from digital logic gates and microprocessors to radio receivers and audio amplifiers.
Figure 1 shows the cross section, symbol as well as the difference between NPN and PNP transistors. In NPN, the current is going
out from EB juction wile in PNP transisters, current is going into the EB juction. In both transisters, most doped region is the
Emitter while least doped is the base [3].

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