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TRANSISTORS

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28 views6 pages

TRANSISTORS

Uploaded by

6qf7yt2sxc
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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TRANSISTORS:

1. A transistor is a miniature semiconductor that regulates or controls


current or voltage flow in addition to amplifying and generating these
electrical signals and acting as a switch/gate for them.
2. Typically, transistors consist of three layers, or terminals, of
semiconductor material, each of which can carry a current.
3. A transistor is made up of three terminals which are called the emitter,
base, and collector.
4. An electrical signal is applied to the base, and the current flow
between the emitter and collector.
5. A transistor basically acts as a switch and an amplifier.
6. The standard units of a transistor for electrical measurement
are Ampere (A), Volt (V), and Ohm (Ω), respectively.
7. The word transistor is a combination of transfer and resistance.
8. This is because it transfers the resistance from one end of the device
to the other end or we can say, transfer of resistance.
9. Hence, the name transistor. Transistors have very high input
resistance and very low output resistance.

Types of transistors:

Transistors are broadly divided into these types:


Bipolar transistors (bipolar junction transistors: BJTs). They are further
classified into two categories

1. An NPN transistor has a piece of P-type silicon (the base) sandwiched


between two pieces of N-type (the collector and emitter).
2. In a PNP transistor, the type of the layers is reversed.

Field-effect transistors (FETs) are further classified into two categories:


1. Insulated-gate bipolar transistors (IGBTs).
2. Metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET)

Thus, a transistor is a miniature semiconductor that regulates or


controls current or voltage flow.

PICTURE AND SYMBOL OF TRANSISTOR


There are three types of configuration as a common base (CB), common collector (CC)
and common emitter (CE).
In Common Base (CB) configuration the base terminal of the transistor is common
between input and output terminals.
Field Effect Transistor (FET)
For FET, the three terminals are Gate, Source and Drain. The voltage at the gate
terminal can control a current between source and drain. FET is a unipolar transistor in
which N channel FET or P channel FET are used for conduction. The main applications
of FETs are in low noise amplifier, buffer amplifier and an analogue switch.

Other Types
Apart from these, there are many other types of transistors which include MOSFET,
JFET, insulated-gate bipolar transistor, thin-film transistor, high electron mobility
transistor, inverted-T field-effect transistor (ITFET), fast-reverse epitaxial diode field-
effect transistor (FREDFET), Schottky transistor, tunnel field-effect transistor, organic
field-effect transistor (OFET), diffusion transistor, etc.
How do Transistors work?
Let us look at the working of transistors. We know that BJT consists of three terminals
(Emitter, Base and Collector). It is a current-driven device where two P-N junctions exist
within a BJT.
One P-N junction exists between emitter and base region and the second junction exists
between the collector and base region. A very small amount of current flow through
emitter to the base can control a reasonably large amount of current flow through the
device from emitter to collector.
In usual operation of BJT, 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 will flow in the collector circuit.
In order to explain the working of the transistor, let us take an example of an NPN
transistor. The same principles are used for PNP transistor except that the current
carriers are holes and the voltages are reversed.

Operation of NPN Transistor


The emitter of NPN device is made by n-type material, hence the majority carriers are
electrons. When the base-emitter junction is forward biased the electrons will move from
the n-type region towards the p-type region and the minority carriers holes moves
towards the n-type region.
When they meet each other they will combine enabling a current to flow across the
junction. When the junction is reverse biased the holes and electrons move away from
the junction, and now the depletion region forms between the two areas and no current
will flows through it.

When a current flows between base and emitter the electrons will leave the emitter and
flow into the base as shown above. Normally the electrons will combine when they
reach the depletion region.
But the doping level in this region is very low and the base is also very thin. This means
that most of the electrons are able to travel across the region without recombining with
holes. As a result, the electrons will drift towards the collector.
In this way, they are able to flow across what is effectively reverse-biased junction and
the current flows in the collector circuit.

Characteristics of Transistor
Characteristics of the transistor are the plots which can represent the relation between
the current and the voltage of a transistor in a particular configuration.
There are two types of characteristics.

 Input characteristics: It will give us the details about the change in input current
with the variation in input voltage by keeping output voltage constant.
 Output characteristics: It is a plot of output current with output voltage by keeping
input current constant.
 Current transfer Characteristics: This plot shows the variation of output current
with the input current by keeping the voltage constant.

Input Characteristics
CB Configuration
This chart will describe the variation of emitter current, I E with base – Emitter voltage,
VBE keeping collector voltage constant, VCB.

CC Configuration
It shows the variation in IB in accordance with VCB with collector-emitter voltage
VCE keeping constant.

CE Configuration
Here it shows the variation in IB in accordance with VBE by keeping VCE constant.
Output Characteristics
CB Configuration
This chart shows the variation of collector current, I C with VCB by keeping emitter current
IE constant.

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