Bipolar Junction Transistor TRANSISTOR CONSTRUCTION The transistor is a three-layer semiconductor device consisting of either two n- and one

p-type layers of material or two p- and one n-type layers of material. The former is called an npn transistor, while the latter is called a pnp transistor.. The emitter layer is heavily doped, the base lightly doped, and the collector only lightly doped. The outer layers have widths much greater than the sandwiched p- or n-type material. For the transistors shown the ratio of the total width to that of the center layer is 0.150/0.001 :1501. The doping of the sandwiched layer is also considerably less than that of the outer layers (typically, 10:1 or less). This lower doping level decreases the conductivity (increases the resistance) of this material by limiting the number of free carriers. For the biasing shown the terminals have been indicated by the capital letters E for emitter, C for collector, and B for base. An appreciation for this choice of notation will develop when we discuss the basic operation of the transistor. The abbreviation BJT, from bipolar junction transistor, is often applied to this threeterminal device. The term bipolar reflects the fact that holes and electrons participate in the injection process into the oppositely polarized material. If only one carrier is employed (electron or hole), it is considered a unipolar device. A bipolar junction transistor (BJT or bipolar transistor) is a type of transistor that relies on the contact of two types of semiconductor for its operation. BJTs can be used as amplifiers, switches, or in oscillators. BJTs can be found either as individual discrete components, or in large numbers as parts of integrated circuits. Bipolar transistors are so named because their operation involves both electrons and holes. These two kinds of charge carriers are characteristic of the two kinds of doped semiconductor material. In contrast, unipolar transistors such as the field-effect transistorshave only one kind of charge carrier. Charge flow in a BJT is due to bidirectional diffusion of charge carriers across a junction between two regions of different charge concentrations. The regions of a BJT are called emitter, collector, and base. A discrete transistor has three leads for connection to these regions. By design, most of the BJT collector current is due to the flow of charges injected from a high-concentration emitter into the base where there are minority carriers that diffuse toward the collector, and so BJTs are classified as minority-carrier devices

PNP

NPN

Schematic symbols for PNP- and NPN-type BJTs. BJTs come in two types, or polarities, known as PNP and NPN based on the doping types of the three main terminal regions. An NPN transistor comprises two semiconductor junctions that share a thin p-doped anode region, and a PNP transistor comprises two semiconductor junctions that share a thin n-doped cathode region. In typical operation, the base emitter junction is forward biased, which means that the p-doped side of the junction is at a more positive potential than the n-doped side, and the basecollector junction is reverse biased. In an NPN transistor, when positive bias is applied to the baseemitter junction, the equilibrium is disturbed between the thermally generated carriers and the repelling electric field of the n-doped emitter depletion region. This allows thermally excited electrons to inject from the emitter into the base region. These electrons diffuse through the base from the region of high concentration near the emitter towards the region of low concentration near the collector. The electrons in the base are called minority carriers because the base is doped p-type, which makes holes the majority carrier in the base. To minimize the percentage of carriers that recombine before reaching the collectorbase junction, the transistor's base region must be thin enough that carriers can diffuse across it in much less time than the semiconductor's minority carrier lifetime. In particular, the thickness of the base must be much less than the diffusion length of the electrons. The collectorbase junction is reverse-biased, and so little electron injection occurs from the collector to the base, but electrons that diffuse through the base towards the collector are swept into the collector by the electric field in the depletion region of the collectorbase junction. The thin shared base and asymmetric collectoremitter doping is what differentiates a bipolar transistor from two separate and oppositely biased diodes connected in series.

NPN BJT with forward-biased EB junction and reverse-biased BC junction

COMMON-BASE CONFIGURATION
All the current directions appearing in Fig. 3.6 are the actual directions as defined by the choice of conventional flow. Note in each case that IE =IC +IB. Note also that the applied biasing (voltage sources) are such as to establish current in the direction indicated for each branch. That is, compare the direction of IE to the polarity or VEE for each configuration and the direction of IC to the polarity of VCC. To fully describe the behavior of a three-terminal device such as the commonbase amplifiers of Fig. 3.6 requires two sets of characteristicsone for the driving point or input parameters and the other for the output side. The input set for the common-base amplifier as shown in Fig. 3.7 will relate an input current (IE) to an input voltage (VBE) for various levels of output voltage (VCB). The output set will relate an output current (IC) to an output voltage (VCB) for various levels of input current (IE) as shown in Fig. 3.8. The output or collector set ofcharacteristics has three basic regions of interest, as indicated in Fig. 3.8: the active

Figure 3.6 Notation and symbols used with the common-base configuration: (a) pnp transistor; (b) npn transistor.