VNU-University of Engineering and Technology

Faculty of Electronics and Telecommunications

Điện Tử Tương Tự
Lecture # 0
Introduction

Mai Linh, PhD

 Content

1. Analog/Analog electronics in brief

2. Basic Semiconductor Physics
3. Describe problem solving approach

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 Nature is Analog
❖ Analog Electronics: An oldest and fundamental branch of electronics.
Although a lot of signal processing is now done digitally, it remains an
indispensable field.

❖ First interface with ‘analog’ nature.

All the natural phenomenon such as variation of light, temperature etc. are
defined in continuous time & value.
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 Electronics reads Environment
❖ An electronic system normally
(made to) interacts with nature
➢ It detects environmental
phenomena and responds to them
in an organized manner.

Fig.: Types, Function of vehicle sensor

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 Analog Signal

Primary information from natural phenomena comes

in the form of optical, acoustic, thermal or chemical
etc. signals.
➢ These signals are converted into electrical signals.
➢ The devices used for such conversions are called
transducers or sensors.
➢ Signals from primary source of information are continuous in time so the
electric signals obtained from the transducers.
➢ The electric signal is analogue of the primary information stream, it is
therefore called ‘Analog Signal’

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 Signal Handling: An art
❖ Electronics is an art of handling information carrying electrical signals.

The electrical signals generated by the transducers may be fragile, weak, and
vulnerable to noise and interference.
✓ Processing of electrical signals starts from this stage. It includes treatment
of signal against the noise and decision making.
✓ After processing, the output signal converted back into the physical signal
or quantities for display or actuation.

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 Analog Electronics Systems
Block diagram of an analog electronic system.

A Loud Speaker system

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 Signal Chain in an Electronic System

❑ A sensor converts the real-world A/D Logic

Amp.
signal into an analog electrical Temp. Converter
Pressure
signal. This analog signal is often Position
weak and noisy. Speed Power Embedded
❑ Amplifiers are needed to strengthen Flow Management Processing
Humidity
the signal. Sound
❑ A/D converters for digital processing Light,...
Amp.
A/D
Converter
if required. Communication

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 Typical Signal Chain in an Electronic System
❖ Analog filtering may be necessary to remove noise from the signal. This (is called)
‘front end’ processing (which) improves the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).
SNR is a measure used in science and
engineering that compares the level of a
desired signal to the level of background
noise. It is defined as the ratio of signal
power to the noise power.

❖ Most important building blocks used in the amplifier and filter stages is:
Operational Amplifiers

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 Prologue to Electronics

S9 4K UHD TV Amplifiers,
Signal sources,
Electronic = Power supplies,
Electronics = systems
Cell phone and Digital
Laptop logic circuits

Tablets

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 Prologue to Electronics
❖ Electronics is defined as the science of the motion of charges in a gas,
vacuum, or semiconductor.
❖ Separate the field of electrical engineering, which dealt with motors,
generators, and wire communications, from the new field of electronic
engineering, which at that time dealt with vacuum tubes.
❖ Today, electronics generally involves transistors and transistor circuits.
Microelectronics refers to integrated circuit (IC) technology, which can
produce a circuit with multimillions of components on a single piece of
semiconductor material.

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 ELECTRONIC CIRCUITS

❖ The analysis of electronic circuits is divided into two parts: one deals
with the dc input and its circuit response, and the other deals with the
signal input and the resulting circuit response.

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 Devices in Electronic Circuits
❖ Passive components – cannot provide power gain
– e.g., resistor, capacitor, inductor
❖ Active devices – can provide power gain and must draw power from a
supply
– e.g., Vacuum tube devices, silicon transistors
– Enable signal amplification which is a key technology for the success
of long distance telephony

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 ANALOG AND DIGITAL SIGNALS

Analog signals Digital signals

The magnitude of an analog signal An alternative signal is at one of two
can take on any value within limits distinct levels and is called a digital
and may vary continuously with time. signal. Since the digital signal has
discrete values, it is said to be quantized.

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 Circuit theories and skills that
you have learned …
• KCL and KVL
• Nodal and Mesh analysis
• Linearity and Superposition
• Source transformation
• Thevenin and Norton theorems
• Maximum power transfer
• AC analysis
• …
You should already be able to analyze circuits that
consist of R, C and L, i.e., passive circuits.
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 The Start of the Modern Electronics Era

Bardeen, Shockley, and Brattain at Bell The first germanium bipolar transistor.
Labs - Brattain and Bardeen invented the Roughly 50 years later, electronics
bipolar transistor in 1947. account for 10% (4 trillion dollars) of
the world GDP.

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 Evolution of Electronic Devices

Vacuum
Tubes Discrete
Transistors

SSI and MSI VLSI

Integrated Surface-Mount
Circuits Circuits

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 Microelectronics Proliferation
• The integrated circuit was invented in 1958.
• World transistor production has more than doubled every year
for the past 50 years.
• Every year, more transistors are produced than in all previous
years combined.
• Approximately 15 sextillion (15×1021) transistors were
produced in 2023 (ChatGPT said):
~2 trillion (1012) transistors for each person alive

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 Basic Semiconductor Physics - review
✓ Semiconductor materials
✓ Energy band models
✓ Charge carries: electrons and holes
✓ Types of semiconductors
✓ Types of currents in semiconductors

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 Semiconductor Materials
• Electrical conductivities of semiconductor materials:
+ intermediate between metals & insulators (10-3→ 105 .cm)
+ variable electrical conductivity by the temp, optical excitation, & impurity
content
• Elemental semiconductors
+ Single species of atoms: Si, Ge
• Compound semiconductors
+ III-V compounds: AlP, AlAs, AlSb, GaN, GaP, GaAs, InP, InAs, InSb
+ II-VI compounds: ZnS, ZnSe, ZnTe, CdS, CdSe, CdTe
+ IV-IV compounds: SiC, SiGe
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 Semiconductor Materials

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 Silicon Covalent Bond Model

❖ Near absolute zero, all bonds

❖ Increasing temperature adds
are complete. Each Si atom
energy to the system and break
contributes one electron to
bonds in the lattice, generating
each of the four bond pairs.
electron-hole pairs.
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 Semiconductor Energy Band Model

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 Bandgap Energy

Bandgap energy is the

minimum energy needed to
free an electron by breaking
a covalent bond in the
semiconductor crystal.

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 Free Electron Density
in Intrinsic Semiconductor
▪ Intrinsic semiconductor = pure semiconductor
▪ The density of free electrons in an intrinsic semiconductor is:
 EG 
ni = B  T  exp  −
2 3

 kT 
 ( cm −6
)
EG = semiconductor bandgap energy in eV (electron volts)
k = Boltzman’s constant, 8.62×10-5 (eV/K)
T = absolute temperature (in K)
B = material-dependent parameter, 1.08×1031 (K-3cm-6) for Si
▪ ni = 1010 cm-3 for Si @ room temperature

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 A Second Charge Carrier - Hole
▪ A vacancy is left when a covalent bond is broken
▪ The vacancy is left with an effective charge of +q
▪ The vacancy is called a hole
▪ A hole moves when the vacancy is filled by an electron from a nearby broken
bond. This motion of charge carrier is called hole current.
▪ Hole density p for intrinsic semiconductor is p = ni
𝑛𝑖2 = 𝑝𝑛
▪ The 𝑝𝑛 product above holds when a semiconductor, not limited to intrinsic
ones, is in thermal equilibrium (when no external excitation is applied).

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 Concept of a Hole

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 Drift Current
▪ When an electrical field is applied to a material, charged particles will move
or drift.
▪ Carrier drift velocity 𝑣Ԧ (cm/s) is proportional to electrical field 𝐸 (V/cm) at
low fields:
vn = −  n E & v p = +  p E
Where
𝑣Ԧ𝑛 & 𝑣Ԧ𝑝 = electron and hole velocity (cm/s)
n & p = electron and hole mobility (cm2/V.s)
▪ n > p since holes are localized to move through the covalent bond structure,
while electrons can move freely in the crystal.
▪ The resulting current is called drift current.

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 Semiconductor Doping
▪ Doping is the process of adding very small
well controlled amounts of impurities into a
pure semiconductor.
▪ Doping enables the control of the resistivity
and other properties over a wide range of
values.
▪ For silicon, impurities are from columns III
and V of the periodic table.

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 Donor Impurities in Silicon
✓ Phosphorous (or other column V element) atom replaces silicon atom in
crystal lattice.
✓ Since phosphorous has five outer shell electrons, there is now an ‘extra’
electron in the structure.
✓ Material is still charge neutral, but very little energy is required to free the
electron for conduction since it is not participating in a bond.

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 Acceptor Impurities in Silicon
✓ Boron (column III element) has been added to silicon.
✓ There is now an incomplete bond pair, creating a vacancy for an electron.
✓ Little energy is required to move a nearby electron into the vacancy.
✓ As the ‘hole’ propagates, charge is moved across the silicon.

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 Energy Band Model for Doped Semiconductors

Semiconductor with donor or n-type Semiconductor with acceptor or p-type

dopants. The donor atoms have free dopants. The donor atoms have unfilled
electrons with energy ED. Since ED is covalent bonds with energy state EA. Since
close to EC, (about 0.045 eV for EA is close to EV, (about 0.044 eV for
phosphorous), it is easy for electrons boron), it is easy for electrons in the
in an n-type material to move up into valence band to move up into the acceptor
the conduction band. sites and complete covalent bond pairs.

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 Doped Silicon Carrier Concentrations
▪ If n > p, the material is n-type.
If p > n, the material is p-type.
▪ The carrier with the larger density is the majority
carrier, the smaller is the minority carrier
▪ ND = donor impurity concentration [atoms/cm3]
NA = acceptor impurity concentration [atoms/cm3]
Typical doping ranges are 1014/cm3 to 1021/cm3
▪ Charge neutrality requires q(ND + p - NA - n) = 0
▪ It can also be shown that pn = ni2
even for doped semiconductors in thermal equilibrium

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 Diffusion Current
• In the presence of a concentration gradient, free carriers have a natural
tendency of moving from high concentration regions to low concentration
regions. The resulted current is called diffusion current.
n(x) or p(x) This current is proportional to the concentration
Carrier
diffusion
gradient:
 p  p
Hole
current
J pdiff = ( + q ) D p   = − qD p
 x  x
( A / cm 2 )
Electron
current
 n  n
J n = ( − q ) Dn  −  = + qD p
diff

 x  x
( A / cm 2 )

x The proportionality constant Dp and Dn are called the

Positive concentration gradient hole & electron diffusivities.

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 Total Current in a Semiconductor
 T n
▪ Total current is the sum of  J n = q  n nE + qDn x
drift and diffusion current: 
 J T = q  pE − qD p
 p p p
x

▪ Mobility and Diffusivity are related by Einstain’s relationship:

Dn D p kT
= = = VT ( Thermal voltage ) VT  25 mV @ room temperature
n  p q
 T  1 n 
J
 n = q  n  E + VT
n 
  n x 

 J T = q p  E − V 1 p 
p  
 p 
T
p x 
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 Problem-Solving Approach
➢ Make a clear problem statement
➢ List known information and given data
➢ Define the unknowns required to solve the problem
➢ List assumptions
➢ Develop an approach to the solution
➢ Perform the analysis based on the approach
➢ Check the results and the assumptions
– Has the problem been solved? Have all the unknowns been found?
– Is the math correct? Have the assumptions been satisfied?
➢ Evaluate the solution
– Do the results satisfy reasonableness constraints?
– Are the values realizable?
➢ Use computer-aided analysis to verify hand analysis
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End of Lecture 0