Lecture 20

Saturation
If the CBJ is biased negatively (not reverse biased!) we find that below ~0.4V it will start to go into forward bias At this point, the current through the collector drops. This is called saturation
Dont confuse it with MOSFET saturation It is actually more like the Triode region in the MOSFET

As the CBJ goes into forward bias, it starts injecting electrons into the base as well. This reduces the slope of the carrier concentration profile, thus reducing the diffusion current.

iC = I S e vBE

VT

I S vBC e R

VT

PNP
The PNP has its layers in the opposite polarity as the NPN. We can thus expect that the behavior will be the same, just with applied voltages in the opposite polarity and currents flowing in the opposite direction.

BJT Symbols
The symbol for the BJT is shown here:
The emitter is designated by an arrowhead Remember that this matters because the emitter and collector are not interchangeable The direction of the arrowhead designates whether the device is npn or pnp

The typical biasing configuration for each device to operate in the active mode is shown

Example 1
Lets look at an npn transistor in this circuit configuration
The transistor has =100 It exhibits a vBE of 0.7V at iC=1mA

Design the circuit so that the collector current is 2mA and +5V appears at the collector terminal The first thing to observe is that with a voltage of +5V at the collector, the CBJ will be reverse biased. Thus the transistor will be in the active mode.

Example 1
We can approach this circuit much like we did for the FET circuit. The first thing we can find is the value of the collector resistor by noting that RC = 10V = 5k 2mA the voltage drop across it must be 10V: Next we want to know what baseiC = I S e vBE / VT emitter voltage will yield 2mA. We start with the equation for the collector iC2 (vBE2 vBE1 )/ VT = I e S current: iC1
Rework this for ratios of current and voltage To solve for the new base-emitter current:
vBE2 = vBE1 = 0.717V iC2 + VT ln iC 1

Example 1
Since the base is grounded, the emitter must be biased at -0.717V. The last thing we need do is calculate the resistance of the emitter resistor: But to do this we need to calculate the emitter current? We can use the ratio to determine this: Note that is where the analysis departs from the FET calculations. This extra current is coming from the base. We never had to worry about base currents.

=
IE =

100 = 0.99 + 1 101 =

IC

2 = 2.02mA 0.99

RE = =

VE ( 15) IE

0.717 + 15 = 7.07 k 2.02mA

IC vs. VCB
It is most instructive to look at the IV characteristics in the common base mode. For one reason, this configuration shows us curves that look very familiar to the MOSFET curves The collector-base voltage is of most interest to us as it determines if the BJT is operating in the active region or in saturation Instead of a gate voltage, here we have the emitter current Note at large VCB we see a significant increase in current. This is due to breakdown for the CBJ.

The Early Voltage

Recall that we covered the Early voltage with MOSFETs but at the time mentioned it was originally seen with the BJT. The end result of the effect is similar to channel-length modulation, but has a different source here As the collector-base bias increases, the CBJ depleted region increases in width. With this increase in width, the base width effectively decreases. IS is inversely proportional to the base width, thus the current through the BJT increases.

Early Effect
We can express the current through the BJT with the early effect taken into account: Here we also have an effective output resistance that is finite: This can be expressed in circuit models:

iC = I S e

v BE VT

vCE 1 + V A

ro =

VA + VCE IC

Common Emitter Config.

Given that BJTs are fundamentally current driven devices, it makes sense to consider I-V curves where the third parameter is not the emitter voltage, but instead the base current The circuit configuration that makes the most sense for this is a common emitter. The current gain parameter for this configuration is something we have already seen:
The that we have seen is the large signal form, because it considers the ratio of the total currents For a small signal, DC biased circuit, we should expect to differ.

I-V curves
Note how the lines are bunched closer together in the saturation mode. This indicates that in the saturation region is smaller than in the active region. This is termed a forced The ratio of the forced to the normal is called the overdrive factor