Electron Devices and Circuits

L - 0, 11.07.2014
Historical Introduction
Faculty: DS Emmanuel
Location: 140 TT
Intercom: 2423
ID: dsemmanuel@vit.ac.in

Acknowledgment: The material in these EDC Course slides are mostly drawn from
the Instructors Resources of Microelectronic Circuits Theory and Applications by
Adel S. Sedra, Kenneth C. Smith & Arun N. Chandorkar, 6/e, Oxford University
Press, New Delhi, 2013, & Electronic Circuit Analysis and Design by Donald A.
Neamen, 3/e, Tata McGraw Hill, New Delhi, 2007.

Self Introduction
BE (EE) from TCE, Madurai, 1973
MSc EE from CIT, Coimbatore, 1975
PhD from UoR, Roorkee, 1989
Have been teaching for 39 years.
I try to give my best and expect you to
reciprocate.
Attempt great things Expect great things
should be our motto!
What I Expect & Why?
Be regular to classes. Marks are awarded for
attendance, for those who put in more than 75%
attendance.
Maintain a separate note book for EDC. Note down
the date before the start of the lecture. This will be
useful to correct the entry when you are wrongly
marked absent.
Bring a scientific calculator for every lecture. Solve
problems and get them evaluated when asked. It will
reflect in your grade.
Observe some (!?!) dress code. Avoid T-shirts with
written matter. It is a distraction to others.
Keep cell phones in silent mode.

Why study Electronic Devices & Circuits?
EDC is the foundation for advanced electronic courses like
AEC, LIC, VLSI Design and all the communication engineering
courses.
It is a pre-requisite for all these courses.
One should have his/her foundation strong to build any
superstructure on it.*
Before we come to grips with EDC we revisit the FEE course
and recall the definitions which are essential to understand
and appreciate this course.
Some Basics
What is electricity?
It is a physical agent pervading the atomic structure
of matter and characterized by being separable by
the expenditure of energy into two components
designated as positive and negative electricity in
which state electricity possesses recoverable
energy.
All matter contained in the universe is electrical in
nature.
An electron is an indivisible element of electricity.

Another definition
Electricity is the science, engineering, technology
and physical phenomena associated with the
presence and flow of electric charges.
Electricity gives a wide variety of well-known
electrical effects, such as lightning, static electricity,
electromagnetic induction and the flow of electric
current in an electrical wire.
In addition, electricity permits the creation and
reception of electromagnetic radiation such as radio
waves.

How did it begin?
The word 'electron' is Greek for amber - a
resin that the Greeks found when rubbed
against cloth or hair developed some
charge, which can attract tiny bits of paper.
Diameter 2.8110
-15
m
Charge 1.610
-19
C
charge-to-mass ratio (Q/m) = 1.76 10
11
C/kg.
For its size, it carries a punch that is
enormous.*
Cobweb vs steel fibre of same size?


Fossilized Amber
Electron discovery
In 1895, Lorentz predicted the existence of electrons.
1897, Thomson experimentally verified it and proved that
it carries a negative charge and determined its charge to
mass ratio.
He devised a tube with an electrode each on either end.
One was cathode and the other anode.

JJ Thomsons Experiment
The anode was kept at a positive potential w.r.t. the
cathode.
When the pressure was reduced to near vacuum
conditions, a ray was seen emanating from cathode to
the anode.
It was named the 'cathode ray'.
The ubiquitous CRO derives its name from that, as it
uses a 'cathode ray tube!

Electronics Evolution

In 1904, Fleming, developed the first device the 'diode'.
It had two electrodes.
It allowed the flow of electricity in one direction and
blocked it in the reverse direction.
It was rightly called a 'valve'.
Its first application was converting alternating electricity
into a unidirectional one.

Continued
Experiments with this valve showed that it developed
an obstacle (a space charge) electrons which were
emitted by the cathode but not attracted by the anode.
They formed a cloud and were blocking further flow of
electrons from cathode to anode.
To overcome this, de Forest, in 1906, introduced a third
electrode, a grid - made of fine wire-mesh and kept it
closer to the cathode and gave it a small negative
potential.


Continued
This way a powerful electron would get thru the grid and
reach the anode and a feeble electron would be repelled back
into the cathode.
The diode valve thus became a triode three electrodes.
That small step indeed was a giant leap for electronics, as that
grid enabled the triode to perform amplification, oscillation,
modulation etc.
This invention gave the world the radio, tape recorder,
television and even the first electronic computer - the ENIAC
(1947).

Triode images

In 1927, HS Black invented the negative feedback amplifier,
(patented in 1934!).
This made the triodes stable, linear etc. Telephone connections
across the length and breadth of US became reliable.
Other developments also took place in the form of tetrode
(1926) and pentode (1929).
This went on for five decades.
For all the magic it did, the vacuum device based electronics
had severe limitations.
What?
Limitations of VTs
It was fragile, being made of glass.
It was heavy and bulky. (20 cm
2
per valve)
It required high voltage for its operation. (300 V)
High power consumption and heat generation. (ENIAC with
some 18000 valves could work for only one hour at a
stretch before some valve fused!)
It took a few minutes warm up time to start functioning.
(e.g. picture tube of a CRT based TV).

Status of VT Electronics ...
The valves gave way to transistors in the 60s and 70s.
CRTs continued into the 21
st
century.
But, now mostly phased out.
We still have picture tubes in our TVs that are CRTs
again replaced by LCD or LED.*
For high power microwave applications, it is still in use
and will continue to be for sometime to come.
Supplanting VTs
In 1940, Russell Ohl, demonstrated a semiconductor
diode that performed like its vacuum tube counterpart.
In 1947 Brattain, Bardeen and Shockley developed the
transistor in phases - first a point contact transistor and
then the junction transistor.
They were awarded Nobel prize in Physics in 1956.
The first engineering device that won a Nobel!*
First Transistor
Transistors short run
The first transistor was the size of a cigarette packet.
As it evolved it became smaller and more dependable.
In 1954, the first transistorized radio hit the market. It was
15 cm high.
With this electronics became portable.
A fashion statement in the 60s! like an ipod of today.
While the transistor was much smaller than a VT, it was not
small enough.

In 1958, Jack Kilby and in 1959, Robert Noyce developed the
concept of integrated circuits, where not only transistors and
diodes but also resistors and capacitors were integrated in a
silicon wafer. (soldering is a weak
1
link in an electronic circuit)
Jack Kilby was awarded a Nobel Prize in 2000. They called it
'solid circuits' or 'unitary circuits'.
That was another giant leap.
This made electronic devices smaller, more powerful yet
cheaper and affordable. *
That in turn made electronics the fastest growing field.**
ICs
Moore's law predicted that every 18 months the
packing density of electronic components in a chip will
double. This has amazingly held true for several
decades. (crossed a billion transistors in a chip)
Today engineers are talking of single electron devices,
spintronics, quantum computers, molecular electronics
with chemical switches etc.
The field continues to grow and is ever exciting. Getting
into it must be an exciting proposition!
You are privileged to be a part of that!! and have a
share in the multi-trillion dollar pie.

Engineering is not only a learned
profession, it is also a learning
profession, one whose practitioners first
become and then remain students
throughout their active careers
William L. Everitt
What is engineering?
It is the art and science that utilize the properties of
matter and the sources of energy in nature to
provide structures, machines and manufactured
products for the benefit of mankind.
(Science is systematized knowledge and art is the
knowledge made perfect in application.)
Illustration:

What is electrical engineering?
It is the art of applying the science of electricity and
magnetism to the design, production and operation
of physical devices and systems.
It is an enthralling occupation!
But why study it?
Because it has permeated every area of Science or
Engineering.
Electronics Engineering is an off-shoot of electrical
engineering and is the foundation on which
everything about electronics is built.

What is electronics?
Study of the flow of charge (electric) in
vacuum tubes, gas filled tubes and
semiconductors.
It is also defined as the study of controlling
the flow of electrons in semi-conductors.

Course Description (ECE 101 EDC )
This course introduces the semiconductor materials and
PN junctions, which leads to the diode circuits and
applications.
It also covers the device physical structures,
characteristics and operations of BJT, FET and MOSFET
with strong emphasis on DC analysis of transistor circuits.
It includes the basic bipolar linear amplifiers and FET
linear amplifiers and their applications.

Course Objectives
The objectives of this course are that the students will have the skills to:
1. describe the physical structure, operation and
characteristics of diodes and transistors.
2. construct and test application based circuits using
diodes.
3. apply analytical and graphical techniques for circuit
analysis
4. analyze different configurations of transistor
amplifier circuits both, MOSFET and BJT based.

Course Learning Outcomes
At the end of the course the students would:
1. comprehend the physical structure and operation of
diodes and transistors.
2. apply analytical, graphical techniques for circuit analysis
and problem solving.
3. understand the operation of basic amplifier circuits
4. utilize MULTISIM and electronic workbench for simulation
and experimental verification.

THANK YOU!
Some history
Electrical phenomena have been studied since
antiquity, though advances in the science
were not made until the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries.
Practical applications for electricity however
remained few, and it would not be until the
late nineteenth century that engineers were
able to put it to industrial and residential use.
The rapid expansion in electrical technology at
this time transformed industry and society.

Continued
Electricity's extraordinary versatility as a
means of providing energy means it can be
put to an almost limitless set of applications
which include lighting, heating, transport,
communications and computation.
Electrical power is the backbone of modern
industrial society, and is expected to remain so
for the foreseeable future.
It is the highest form of energy.