Using Transistor as a Switch

Most of microcontrollers work within 5 volt environment and the I/O port can only handle current up to 20mA; therefore if
we want to attach the microcontrollers I/O port to different voltage level circuit or to drive devices with more than 20mA;
we need to use the interface circuit. One of the popular method is to use the Bipolar Junction Transistor (BJT) or we just
called it transistor in this tutorial. I have to make clear on this BJT type to differentiate among the other types of transistors
family such as FET (Field Effect Transistor), MOSFET (Metal Oxide Semiconductor FET), VMOS (Vertical MOSFET) and UJT (UniJunction Transistor).
A. The Switch
The transistor actually works as a current gainer; any current applied to the base terminal will be multiplied by the current
gain factor of the transistor which known as hFE. Therefore transistor can be used as amplifier; any small signal (very small
current) applied to the base terminal will be amplified by the factor of h FE and reflected as a collector current on the collector
terminal side.

All the transistors have three state of operation:

Off state: in this state there is no base current applied or IB = 0.
On active state: in this state any changes in IB will cause changes in IC as well or IC = IB x hFE. This type of state is
suitable when we use transistor as a signal amplifier because transistor is said is in the linear state. For example if we have a
transistor with gain of 100 and we increase the IB from 10uA to 100uA; this will cause the IC to swing from 1000uA to
10000uA (1 mA to 10 mA).
On saturate state: in this state any changes in IB will not cause changes in IC anymore (not linear) or we could say IC is
nearly constant. We never use this state to run the transistor as a signal amplifier (class A amplifier) because the output
signal will be clamped when the transistor is saturate. This is the type of state that we are looking for on this tutorial.

From the picture above we could see the voltage and current condition of transistor on each state; if you notice when
transistor is in off state the voltage across collector and emitter terminal is equal to the supplied voltage, this is equivalent to
the open circuit and when transistor is in saturate state the collector to emitter voltage is equal or less then 0.2 Volt which is

equivalent to the close circuit. Therefore to

use transistor as a switch we have to make
transistor OFF which equivalent to the
logical 0 and SATURATEwhich is
equivalent to the logical 1.
One of the famous diagrams that show the
transistor operating state is called the
transistor static characteristic curve as shown
on this following picture:
When we operate transistor as the class A
common emitter amplifier usually we choose
to bias the transistor (apply voltage on VBE and
VCE) in such a way (Q-Point) that IC and
VCE (output) will swing to its maximum or
minimum value without any distortion (swing
into the saturation or cut-off region) when the
IB (input) swing to its maximum or minimum
value; but when we operate the transistor as
switch we intentionally push the transistor
into its saturation region to get the lowest
possible VCE (i.e. near 0.2 volt) when we need to make the transistor ON (switch ON) and into its cut-off region when we
need to make the transistor OFF (switch OFF).

The above diagram show a typical microcontroller interface circuit using NPN transistor; the RB resistor is used to control
the current on base terminal that make transistor OFF and ON (saturate); while the RCresistor is the current limiter for
the load. if the load operate with the same voltage as the supplied power (Vcc) you can by pass the RC (not use).
Notice the diode (also known as the clamp diode) in the inductive load circuit is needed to protect the transistor again the
EMF (Electromotive Force) voltage generated by the inductor component when the transistor is switched on and off rapidly,
this voltage is oppose the source voltage. The diode will act as a short circuit to the high voltage generated by the inductor
component, you can use any general purpose diode with capable on handling minimum 1 A of current such as 1N4001,
1N4002, etc.

On the picture shown above you could see how we connect the transistor as the high active switch (logical high) also known
as low side switch using NPN transistor and the low active switch (logical low) also known as high side switch using
PNP transistor.
Ok lets calculate each of the RB and RC value on this following NPN transistor circuit:
On the circuit above we are going
to use 2N3904 (the cheap general
purpose transistor where you
could easily found on your local
market) to drive 5 LED from
microcontroller port, from the
2N3904 datasheet we get this
following information:
IC max = 200mA (this is maximum
value that will make your
transistor smoked, in practical
application always use just half of
the maximum value mentioned on
the datasheet), hFE = 100 to 300,
VBE saturate = 0.65 Volt,
VCE saturate = 0.2 Volt
For most transistor in general we
can use VBE = 0.7 Volt (should be
saturate) and VCE = 0 Volt. Using the 5 volt power supply (VCC) and assuming VLED = 2 Volt, with each of them consuming 15
mA, we could calculate the RC value using the Ohms law as follow:
IC = 5 x 15 mA = 75mA (0.075 A), this current is still far below the maximum IC allowed by 2N3904 transistor.
RC = (VCC VLED) / IC = (5 2) / 0.075 = 40 Ohm
Power Dissipation on the RC resistor will be
P = (VCC VLED) x IC = (5 2) x 0.075 = 0.225 Watt
Base on the above calculation we could use the nearest higher value available on the market; which is 47 Ohm, 0.5
watt resistor (for heat dissipation usually we use twice of the watt value calculated).
Assuming the hFE minimum is 100; the minimum current required in the transistors base terminal to drive the LED is:
IC = hFE x IB
IB = IC / hFE = 0.075 / 100 = 0.00075 A (0.75 mA)
This current can easily be supplied by most microcontroller I/O port; which is capable to drive up to 20 mA output current.
Again by applying the Ohms law we could calculate the RB value as follow:
RB = (VPORT VBE) / IB
Assuming the minimum average voltage of microcontroller I/O port (VPORT) with logical 1 is about 4.2 volt (the
microcontroller is powered by 5 volt supply):
RB = (4.2 0.7) / 0.00075 = 4666.66 Ohm

Power dissipation on the RC resistor will be

P = (VPORT VBE) x IB = (4.2 0.7) x 0.00075 = 0.002625 Watt
Base on the result you could use 4K7 Ohm, 0.25 Watt resistor (this is the common resistor which you could easily
found on the local market i.e. 0.25 watt and 0.5 watt).
Use this RB calculation as your maximum reference value; in the real world most of the transistors hFE is vary and being
measured (tested) with different VCE and IC value not to mention different specification even though you use the same
transistor type. Therefore the real RB value could be lower than 4K7 if you really want to drive the transistor into its fully
saturate mode where the VCE near 0.2 volt.

Now the question is how we determine the exact value? To answer to this question I build this following testing circuit base
on the RC and RB calculated value above using the Atmel AVR ATTiny25 microcontroller to blink the five LED:

Note: the reason I used RC = 3150 Ohm because at that time I run out the required 47 Ohm resistor, therefore you could
use just single 47 Ohm resistor or if you only have 150 Ohm as I did, you could use them as I did.
Bellow is the C Program that I used to test this circuit:
//***************************************************************************
// File Name
: trswitch.c
// Version
: 1.0
// Description : Transistor as Switch: Simple LED Blinker
// Author
: RWB
// Target
: Atmel AVR ATTiny25 Microcontroller
// Compiler : AVR-GCC 4.3.0; avr-libc 1.6.2 (WinAVR 20090313)
// IDE
: Atmel AVR Studio 4.17
// Programmer : Atmel AVRISPmkII
// Last Updated : 1 November 2009
//***************************************************************************
#include <avr/io.h>
#include <util/delay.h>
int main(void)
{
// Initial I/O
DDRB |= (1<<PB3);
// Set PB3 as Output, Others as Input

PORTB &= ~(1<<PB3);

// Reset the PB3

for(;;) {
// Loop Forever
PORTB |= (1<<PB3); // Port PB3 High
_delay_ms(3000); // Delay 3 Second
PORTB &= ~(1<<PB3); // Port PB3 Low
_delay_ms(1000); // Delay 1 Second
}
return 0;
// Standard Return Code
}
/* EOF: trswitch.c */
The program simply blink all the LED by toggling the AVR ATTiny25 microcontroller PB3 output port high for about 3 second
and low for about 1 second and here is the test result when the PB3 port swing to the logical high:

As youve seen from the result there is about 0.4 volt drop on the collector to emitter (VCE) terminal instead of 0 Volt as
we assume on the above calculation and the DC current gain is about 58 instead of100 again as we assume on the above
calculation. Now you understand there are tremendous different result between the 2N3904 transistor datasheet and my
test circuit, this is because the 2N3904 datasheet is measured using the PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) with period for
about 300 us (micro second) and duty cycle for about 2%, the reason to use this very short pulse period method in the
measurement is because they dont want to overheat the transistor junction; where this junction heating will vary the
transistor hFE measurement significantly.
On my test circuit above; I used 3 second to make the 2N3904 transistor ON (saturate, V BE = 0.81 Volt, VCE = 0.4 Volt) and
1second to make it OFF. The other factor that make the test result differ is the various manufacture specification even
though we used the same transistor type. Therefore the answer to the above question is; there is no exact value
for RC and RB; is depend on your application but it save to use the above method to calculate the RC and RB and then
do the circuit prototyping to test your design, next adjust your RC and RB value accordingly.
Some calculation suggestion is to use the collector to base current ratio of 10 (regardless of the transistorhFE value) to
force the transistor into fully saturate (VCE = 0.2 Volt, as shown on the datasheet above) by using this following formula:
IB = IC / hFE = IC / 10
This is what I called a maximum saturate calculation method (also known as worst-case design procedure),
again as youve seen from the real test circuit result above even though we drive the V BEmore than 0.7 volt, we still get the
hFE for about 58 and IB for about 0.88 mA which is useful in the microcontroller application (for more information you could
read Powering Your Microcontrollers Base Project on this blog), therefore for practical application I would
suggest; if you want to use this maximum saturate calculation method to determine the base resistor (RB) value, make sure
at least you double the calculated value. For example to determine the RB on the test circuit above using this maximum
saturate calculation method:
IB = IC / hFE = 0.075 / 10 = 0.0075 A (7.5 mA)
RB = (4.2 0.7) / 0.0075 = 466.66 Ohm
By using twice the calculated value you will get 933.32 Ohm, or you could use the 1K Ohm standard resistor.
In typical rapid switching transistor application actually we dont drive the transistor into its full saturate state (i.e. V CE = 0.2
Volt), because when the transistor is fully saturate, it tend to have a longer switching time (i.e. from ON to OFF to ON again).
The VCE = 0.4 volt as shown on the real test circuit above is already adequate for most switching application, while we could
still take advantage of the low transistor base current (i.e. I B = 0.88 mA). You could see this test circuit on the video at the
end of this article.

A. The Switch
B. Driving the Relay
C. Increasing the Collector Current
D. The Darlington Transistor Array

E. Isolating your Circuit

F. Controlling your DC motor direction