DIODE

Diode – some facts

• In electronics, a diode is a two-terminal electronic
component that conducts electric current in only one
direction.
• Diodes were the first semiconductor electronic devices.
• The discovery of crystals' rectifying abilities was made by
German physicist Ferdinand Braun in 1874.
• The first semiconductor diodes, called cat's whisker
diodes, were made of mineral crystals such as galena.
• Today most diodes are made of silicon, but other
semiconductors such as germanium are sometimes used.
 Types of semiconductor diodes
• Cat’s whisker or crystal diodes
• Constant current diodes
• Esaki or tunnel diodes (to generate radio frequency oscillations )
• Gunn diodes
• Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) – (to produce light )
• Laser diodes
• Thermal diodes
• Photodiodes
• PIN diodes
• Schottky diodes
• Varicap or varactor diodes (to electronically tune radio and TV receivers
)
• Zener diodes (to regulate voltage )
Some diode symbols
 P-N Junction diode
• P-N junctions are elementary "building blocks" of
almost all semiconductor electronic devices such as
diodes, transistors, solar cells, LEDs, and integrated
circuits;

• The discovery of the p–n junction is usually attributed

to American physicist Russell Ohl of Bell Laboratories

• Schottky junction is a special case of a p-n junction,

where metal serves the role of the n-type
semiconductor.
 Unbiased diode

• For silicon diodes, the built-in potential is approximately

0.7 V, 0.3 V for Germanium and 0.2 V for Schottky
I-V characteristics of P Junction diode
 Zener diode
• A Zener diode is a type of diode that permits
current not only in the forward direction like a
normal diode, but also in the reverse direction if
the voltage is larger than the breakdown voltage
known as "Zener knee voltage" or "Zener
voltage".
• The device was named after Clarence Zener, who
discovered this electrical property.
• Breakdown voltage for commonly available zener
diodes can vary widely from 1.2 volts to 200
volts.
Zener diode as voltage regulator
 Diodes - Applications
• Radio demodulation
• Power conversion
• Over-voltage protection
• Logic gates
• Ionizing radiation detectors
• Temperature measurements
• Current steering
Bipolar Junction Transistor
Bipolar Junction Transistors (BJTs)

• The bipolar junction transistor is a semiconductor

device constructed with three doped regions.
• These regions essentially form two ‘back-to-back’
p-n junctions in the same block of semiconductor
material (silicon).
• The most common use of the BJT is in linear
amplifier circuits (linear means that the output is
proportional to input). It can also be used as a
switch (in, for example, logic circuits).
 Types
• NPN

• PNP
 npn Structure
• The emitter (E) and is heavily doped (n-type).

• The collector (C) is heavily doped doped n-type.

• The base (B) is lightly doped with opposite type to the

emitter and collector (i.e. p-type in the npn transistor).
Structure (Cross Section)
 BJT Circuits
• Most electronic devices take the signal between
two input terminals and deliver from it an output
signal between two output terminals.
• The BJT has only three terminals so one of these
is usually shared (i.e. made common) between
input and output circuits.
• We thus talk about common emitter (CE),
common base (CB) and common collector (CC)
configurations.
 Analogy
C

E
Common Base
Common Emitter
 BJT Circuits
• The CE configuration is the one most commonly
encountered since it provides both good current
and voltage gain for ac signals.
• In the CE configuration the input is between the
base and the emitter. The output is between the
collector and the emitter.
 Current Directions (Convention)
• We define currents directions such that the
collector current (IC) and base current (IB)
flow into the device whereas the emitter
current (IE) flows out of the device.

• THIS IS IMPORTANT; we shall shortly treat

the transistor as a current node and write
IC + IB = IE (Kirchhoff)
 Current Flow Convention

E
Emitter Base Collector C
(n-type) (p-type) (n-type)
IE
IC

IB B
 Basic Operation
• In normal operation for analogue (linear amplifier) circuits the emitter-base junction
is forward biased and the collector-base junction is reverse biased.
• These ‘bias’ or ‘quiescent’ conditions are set by d.c. bias circuits.
• The forward bias between the base and emitter injects electrons from the emitter
into the base and holes from the base into the emitter.
• As the emitter is heavily doped and the base lightly doped most of the current
transport across this junction is due to the electrons flowing from emitter to base.
• The base is lightly doped and physically very thin.
• Thus only a small percentage of electrons flowing across the base-emitter (BE) junction
combine with the available holes in this region.
• Most of the electrons (a fraction α which is close to 1, e.g. 0.98) flowing from the
emitter into the base reach the collector-base (CB) junction.
• Once they reach this junction they are ‘pulled’ across the reverse biased CB junction
into the collector region i.e. they are collected.
• Those electrons that do recombine in the base give rise to the small base current I B.
• The electrons ‘collected’ by the collector at the C-
B junction essentially form the collector current in
the external circuit.
• There will also be a small contribution to collector
current, called ICO, from the reverse saturation
current across the CB junction.
• The base current supplies positive charge to
neutralise the (relatively few) electrons
recombining in the base. This prevents the build
up of charge which would hinder current flow.
 BJT Operation.
The Critical Knowledge!
• The (relatively large) collector current is
directly controlled by the (much smaller)
base current.
• This is further illustrated and clarified in
the following discussions of the BJT’s
current-voltage characteristics.
Output characteristic
Input characteristics
 Modes of Operation
• Active Mode
• Cut-off mode
• Saturation Mode
 Transistor Biasing

Region of Emitter-Base Collector-Emitter Operation of a

operation Junction Junction transistor

Acts as an
Active FB RB
amplifier

Cut-off RB RB Open switch

Saturation FB FB Closed switch

 Applications
• Bipolar junction transistors remain important devices
for ultra-high-speed discrete logic circuits such as
emitter coupled logic (ECL),
• power-switching applications and
• in microwave power amplifiers.
• BJTs are universally used in electrical circuits where
current needs to be controlled.
– Some of the areas are:
• switching elements to control DC power to a load,
• amplifiers for analog signals,
 MOSFET
• While Shockley’s JFET was greatest invention
over BJT, for less off current, high input
impedance, voltage controlled and temperature
insensitive  Mead’s MOSFET won JFET by
exceedingly great reduce in off current and
higher impedance…
• Over 50 years, the size was reduced about 1 lakh
times, the latest MOSFET has over all size of
40nm.
Device structure
 Operation

• While the Gate is positive higher voltage, which attracts the

negative carriers (electrons) and will form a region below gate.
• Since this region inverted from p-type, it called as “Inversion
region”. This region supports the flow of carriers from source
to drain, so again called as “Channel”
• The channel width is depending on gate bias/potential which
decides the drain current.
• The length of the gate metal is called “gate length” and length
of the channel is called “Effective gate length”.
• Depending on the Gate voltage
(VGS> 0 and VGS<0), the
operation completely differs,
they are respectively called
“Enhancement Mode” and
“Depletion Mode”
 Enhancement type
• The channel is formed normally without any
added region.
• Normally OFF
Depletion type
• Channel is depleted
by forces Gate
voltage
• Normally ON
• Most of the mobile
applications.
 Common Source Amplifier; Analytical
Study
D ZL
• Here, the FET can be either
JFET or MOSFET, the
difference between them is on G
the value of parameters gm and
rD S

• Simply the load is connected

series to drain, which will be
parallel to rD.
G
CGD D
• The Dynamic gain is simply V0
calculated by ration of input
voltage and output voltage at a g rD
CGS ZL
particular frequency, orVthe
i
m

range of frequency CDS

S
 Common Source Characteristics
• Depending on the Gate voltage (VGS> 0 and VGS<0), the
operation completely differs, they are respectively called
“Enhancement Mode” and “Depletion Mode”
  g m  Ygd
AV 
YL  Yds  g d  Ygd

Each terms are strictly admittance, however, while low frequency

is concern – the series capacitance will be in-effective. So the gain
will be expressed as

 gm
AV   g m Z L when rD  Z L
YL  g d

Input Admittance and Miller Effect:

While solve the above equation for Input admittance, the input capacitance
can be justified with miller effect which is most useful for two:
1. Cascading of amplifier
2. Amplifier Stabilization (by feedback mechanism)

Yi
Ci C gs  1  g m rD C gd
jw
 Common Drain Amplifier; Source
Follower
• Similar to CC configuration; a ‘source resistance’ be added
in common source configuration

g m  Ygd
AV 
1  (Yds  g d  Ygd ) RS

G Ci C gs  1  g m rD C gs

Here the input capacitance reduced than

S Common Source, which will increase the
RS input impedance and by further decreases
the output impedance which is good for an
amplifier.
 Voltage variable resistor (VVR)
• The gate defines the
channel, where channel is
like a semiconductor bar
with size control on VG
• It’s very direct that the
resistance of material is
voltage controlled.
• The region before pinch of
is suitable for this
application (after pinch off,
the device isroindependent
rD 
of voltage.)
1  KV 
GS
ro drain resistance at zero bias (minimum)
K a constant (varies with FET type)
 Application of VVR
• Automatic Gain Control: For the Feedback
amplifiers, the gain is solely depending on
feedback amplifier

• Voltage controlled Tuning: For modern mobile

systems and automatic tuning applications