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Chapter 11 Transistors

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28 views23 pages

Chapter 11 Transistors

Uploaded by

Imaduddin Sharafi
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 PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Electronics

Chapter No: 11

Lecturer: Sharifullah Shiam


Contact Cell: +93784822580
Email: [email protected]
Transistors Chapter No: 11
Transistors Chapter No: 11

Who invented the transistor?


• Transistors were invented at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey
in 1947 by three brilliant US physicists: John Bardeen (1908–
1991), Walter Brattain (1902–1987), and William
Shockley(1910–1989).
Transistors Chapter No: 11
Transistors Chapter No: 11

• Your brain contains around 100 billion cells called neurons


—the tiny switches that let you think and remember
things. Computers contain billions of miniature "brain
cells" as well.
• They're called transistors and they're made from silicon, a
chemical element commonly found in sand. Transistors
have revolutionized electronics since they were first
invented over half a century ago by John Bardeen, Walter
Brattain, and William Shockley. But what are they—and
how do they work?
Transistors Chapter No: 11

What does a transistor actually do?


• A transistor is really simple—and really complex.
Let's start with the simple part. A transistor is a
miniature electronic component that can do two
different jobs. It can work either as an amplifier
or a switch:
Transistors Chapter No: 11

When it works as an amplifier, it takes in a tiny


electric current at one end (an input current) and produces a
much bigger electric current (an output current) at the other.
In other words, it's a kind of current booster.

That comes in really useful in things like hearing aids, one of the
first things people used transistors for. A hearing aid has a tiny
microphone in it that picks up sounds from the world around you
and turns them into fluctuating electric currents.
Transistors Chapter No: 11

• These are fed into a transistor that boosts them and powers a
tiny loudspeaker, so you hear a much louder version of the
sounds around you. William Shockley, one of the inventors of the
transistor, once explained transistor-amplifiers to a student in a
more humorous way:
• "If you take a bale of hay and tie it to the tail of a mule and then
strike a match and set the bale of hay on fire, and if you then
compare the energy expended shortly thereafter by the mule with
the energy expended by yourself in the striking of the match, you
will understand the concept of amplification."
Transistors Chapter No: 11

• Transistors can also work as switches. A tiny electric current


flowing through one part of a transistor can make a much bigger
current flow through another part of it. In other words, the
small current switches on the larger one.
• This is essentially how all computer chips work. For example, a
memory chip contains hundreds of millions or even billions of
transistors, each of which can be switched on or off individually.
Transistors Chapter No: 11

• Since each transistor can be in two distinct


states, it can store two different numbers,
zero and one. With billions of transistors, a
chip can store billions of zeros and ones, and
almost as many ordinary numbers and letters
(or characters, as we call them). More about
this in a moment.
Transistors Chapter No: 11

How is a transistor made?

Transistors are made from silicon, a chemical element


found in sand, which does not normally conduct electricity
(it doesn't allow electrons to flow through it easily).
Transistors Chapter No: 11

Silicon is a semiconductor, which means it's neither really a


conductor (something like a metal that lets electricity flow) nor
an insulator (something like plastic that stops electricity
flowing).

If we treat silicon with impurities (a process known as doping),


we can make it behave in a different way.
Transistors Chapter No: 11

• If we dope silicon with the chemical elements arsenic,


phosphorus, or antimony, the silicon gains some extra "free"
electrons—ones that can carry an electric current—so
electrons will flow out of it more naturally. Because electrons
have a negative charge, silicon treated this way is called n-
type (negative type).
• We can also dope silicon with other impurities such as boron,
gallium, and aluminum. Silicon treated this way has fewer of
those "free" electrons, so the electrons in nearby materials
will tend to flow into it. We call this sort of silicon p-
type (positive type).
Transistors Chapter No: 11

• Quickly, in passing, it's important to note that


neither n-type or p-type silicon actually has a
charge in itself:
• both are electrically neutral. It's true that n-type
silicon has extra "free" electrons that increase its
conductivity, while p-type silicon has fewer of
those free electrons, which helps to increase its
conductivity in the opposite way.
Transistors Chapter No: 11

• In each case, the extra conductivity comes from having


added neutral (uncharged) atoms of impurities to silicon that
was neutral to start with—and we can't create electrical charges
out of thin air! A more detailed explanation would need me to
introduce an idea called band theory, which is a little bit beyond
the scope of this article.
• All we need to remember is that "extra electrons" means
extra free electrons—ones that can freely move about and help to
carry an electric current.
Transistors Chapter No: 11

How a junction transistor works

• Now suppose we use three layers of silicon in our sandwich instead of two.
We can either make a p-n-p sandwich (with a slice of n-type silicon as the
filling between two slices of p-type) or an n-p-n sandwich (with the p-type
in between the two slabs of n-type).
• If we join electrical contacts to all three layers of the sandwich, we can
make a component that will either amplify a current or switch it on or off—
in other words, a transistor. Let's see how it works in the case of an n-p-n
transistor.
Transistors Chapter No: 11

• So we know what we're talking about, let's give names to the three
electrical contacts. We'll call the two contacts joined to the two
pieces of n-type silicon the emitter and the collector, and the
contact joined to the p-type silicon we'll call the base.
• When no current is flowing in the transistor, we know the p-type
silicon is short of electrons (shown here by the little plus signs,
representing positive charges) and the two pieces of n-type silicon
have extra electrons (shown by the little minus signs, representing
negative charges).
Transistors Chapter No: 11

Another way of looking at this is to say that while the n-


type has a surplus of electrons, the p-type has holes where
electrons should be.
Normally, the holes in the base act like a barrier,
preventing any significant current flow from the emitter to
the collector while the transistor is in its "off" state.
Transistors Chapter No: 11

• A transistor works when the electrons and the holes start moving
across the two junctions between the n-type and p-type silicon.
• Let's connect the transistor up to some power. Suppose we
attach a small positive voltage to the base, make the emitter
negatively charged, and make the collector positively charged.
• Electrons are pulled from the emitter into the base—and then
from the base into the collector. And the transistor switches to its
"on" state:
Transistors Chapter No: 11

• The small current that we turn on at the base


makes a big current flow between the emitter and
the collector. By turning a small input current into
a large output current, the transistor acts like an
amplifier. But it also acts like a switch at the same
time. When there is no current to the base, little
or no current flows between the collector and the
emitter.
Transistors Chapter No: 11

• Turn on the base current and a big current flows. So the


base current switches the whole transistor on and off.
• Technically, this type of transistor is called bipolar because
two different kinds (or "polarities") of electrical charge
(negative electrons and positive holes) are involved in
making the current flow.
Transistors Chapter No: 11

• We can also understand a transistor by thinking of it like a pair of


diodes. With the base positive and the emitter negative, the base-
emitter junction is like a forward-biased diode, with electrons
moving in one direction across the junction (from left to right in
the diagram) and holes going the opposite way (from right to left).
• The base-collector junction is like a reverse-biased diode. The
positive voltage of the collector pulls most of the electrons
through and into the outside circuit (though some electrons do
recombine with holes in the base).

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