TRANSISTOR 1906- Lee De Forest ,Triode in vacuum tube (amplify

 An electronic device made of a semiconductor signals) allowing farther telephone conversations.

that can act as an insulator and a conductor.  The problems with this Triode are that it was
 The ability to change from these two states unreliable and used a lot of power.
enables the device switch or amplifies. 1907- Bell telephone patents expire.
 It has of three components:  AT&T (Bell’s company) bought De Forest’s
 Source triode patent.
 Gate  Result: transcontinental telephone service.
 Drain 1928- The first patents for the transistor principle were
registered in Germany by Julius Edgar Lilienfield.
 He proposed the basic principle behind the
MOS field-effect transistor
1934- German Physicist Dr. Oskar Heil patented the field
effect transistor
1936- Mervin Kelly Bell Lab's director of research. He
felt that to provide the best phone service it will need a
“The Transistor was probably the most better amplifier; the answer might lie in
important invention of the 20th Century and the story semiconductors. And he formed a department
behind the invention is one of clashing egos and top dedicated to solid state science
secret research.” -Ira Flatow 1945- Bill Shockley the team leader of the solid state
 Transistors replaced vacuum tubes. department (Hell’s Bell Lab) hired Walter Brattain and
 Transistors are central to the Integrated Circuit, John Bardeen.
and therefore, all electronic devices of the  He designed the first semiconductor amplifier,
information age, such as: pc’s, cellular phones, relying on the field effect.
ipods, pda’s, intelligent cars and buildings……..  His device was a small cylinder coated thinly
are made possible. with silicon, mounted close to a small, metal
TIMELINE plate.
1874- Ferdinand Braun discovered Rectification  The device didn't work, and Shockley assigned
 crystals that can conduct current in only one Bardeen and Brattain to find out why.
direction under certain conditions. 1947- Bardeen and Brattain built the point contact
1883- Edison effect ( thermionic emission). transistor.
 The flow of electrons from metals caused by  They made it from strips of gold foil on a plastic
thermal vibration energy (heat) that overcomes triangle, pushed down into contact with slab of
the electrostatic forces that hold the electrons germanium.
to the surface.  Shockley make the Junction transistor
1895- Guglielmo Marconi sent a radio signal over a (sandwich).
distance of more than a mile.  This transistor was more practical and easier to
1895 -John Ambrose Fleming -developed the Vacuum fabricate.
Tube  The Junction Transistor became the central
 a device that modify a signal by controlling the device of the electronic age
movement of electrons in an evacuated space.  A thin piece of semiconductor of one type
 The electrons flow only from filament to plate between two slices of another type, is able to
creating a diode (a device that can conduct control the flow of the current between emitter
current only in one direction) and the collector.
1898- Thomson discovered the electron.  Even if the input current is weak, the transistor
can control a strong current.
  The effect accomplish is that the current  In the simplest sense, the transistor works like a
through the collector mimics and amplify the dimmer.
behavior of the current through the Emitter.  With a push the knob of the dimmer,
1948- Bells Lab unveil the transistor. the light comes on and off. You have a
 They decided to name it transistor instead of switch. Rotate the knob back and forth,
Point-contact solid state amplifier. and the light grows brighter, dimmer,
 John Pierce invented the name, combining brighter, dimmer. Than you have a
transresistance with the ending common to modulator.
devices, like varistor and thermistor. Both the dimmer and the transistor can control
1950- Sony receives a license from Bell Labs to build current flow. Both can act as a switch and as a
transistors modulator/amplifier. The important difference is that
 In 1946 Sony produced products for radio the “hand” operating the transistor is millions of times
repair. In 1950 they decided to build something faster. Transistors are made of semi-conductors such as
for the mass consumption; the transistor radio. silicon and gallium arsenide. These materials carry
 In United States they used the transistors electricity not well enough to be called conductors; not
primarily for computers and military uses. badly enough to be called insulators. Hence their name
1955- Foundation of Shockley Semiconductor semiconductor. The importance of a transistor is in its
1957- The traitorous eight abandoned Shockley ability to control its own semi conductance, namely
founding Fairchild Semiconductor. acting like a conductor when needed, or as an insulator
1958- Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments – Invent the (nonconductor) when that is needed.
Integrated Circuit (IC) You can compare a transistor to an ordinary faucet.
 It occurred to him that all parts of a circuit could The water enters the faucet in the pipeline from the
be made out of the same piece of silicon. water distributor, which would correspond to the
 The entire circuit could be built out of a single source in the Transistor. The water then leaves the
crystal faucet into the sink, this would be the drain in the
 Reducing the size Transistor. The water tap controls the amount, flow, of
 Easier to produce water. In the Transistor the gate operates as this
 Integrated Circuit is a single device that controller. With a small force you can control the water
contains an interconnected array of elements flow with the water tap, just as you can control the
like transistors, resistors, capacitors, and current flowing from the source to the drain, with a
electrical circuits contained in a silicon wafer. small change of the charge of the gate.
1968- Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore, two of the
traitorous eight together with Andy Grove, form Intel Transistor types
Corporation  MOS - Metal Oxide Semiconductor
 FET - Field Effect Transistor
 BJT - Bipolar Junction Transistor
How a Transistor Works
 The transistor can function as: Moore’s Law
 An insulator  It’s an observation made by Gordon E. Moore,
 A conductor in which he predicted that the number of
 The transistor's ability to fluctuate between transistors, inside an Integrated Circuit, could
these two states that enables to switch or be doubled every 24 months.
amplify.  At the density that also minimized the cost of a
 The transistor has many applications, but only transistor.
two basic functions: switching and modulation
(amplification).
Transistor problems
 Power density increased
 Device variability
 Reliability
 Complexity
 Leakage
 Power dissipation limits device density
 Transistor will operate near ultimate limits of
size and quality – eventually, no transistor can
be fundamentally better
Pictorial History of Transistors

Currents in a Transistor
 Emitter current is the sum of the collector and
base currents:

I E= I C +I B

Transistor Construction  The collector current is comprised of two

There are two types of transistors: currents:
• pnp IC = I C + I CO

p
majority minority
• npn
The terminals are labeled:
• E - Emitter Common-Base Configuration
• B - Base
• C - Collector
n
Transistor Operation np
shown: p
With the external sources, VEE and VCC, connected as

• The emitter-base junction is forward

biased
n
• The base-collector junction is reverse
biased
The base is common to both input (emitter–
base) and output (collector–base) of the transistor.
Input Characteristics Alpha (α)
This curve shows the relationship between of
input current (IE) to input voltage (VBE) for three output Alpha (a) is the ratio of IC to IE :
voltage (VCB) levels. IC
α dc =
IE

Ideally: a = 1
In reality: a is between 0.9 and 0.998

Alpha (a) in the AC mode:

Output Characteristics ΔI C
α ac =
This graph demonstrates the output current (IC) ΔI E
to an output voltage (VCB) for various levels of input Transistor Amplification
current (IE).

Currents and Voltages:

V i 200mV
I E =I i = = =10mA
Ri 20 Ω
I C ≃I E
I L ≃I i=10 mA
V L=I L R=(10 ma)(5 kΩ )=50 V
Operating Regions
Voltage Gain:
• Active – Operating range of the amplifier.
• Cutoff – The amplifier is basically off. There is V L 50V
A v= = =250
voltage, but little current. V i 200mV
• Saturation – The amplifier is full on. There is
current, but little voltage.
Common–Emitter Configuration
Approximations
 The emitter is common to both input (base-
Emitter and collector currents: emitter) and output (collector-emitter).
 The input is on the base and the output is
IC≃ I E
on the collector.
Base-emitter voltage:
V BE=0. 7 V ( for Silicon)
 I CBO
I CEO = |I =0 μA
1−α B

Beta (b)
b represents the amplification factor of a
transistor. (b is sometimes referred to as hfe, a term
used in transistor modeling calculations)
In DC mode:

IC
β dc =
IB
In AC mode:

ΔI C
β ac= |
ΔI B V CE =constant
Beta (b)
Collector
Determining b from a Graph
Characteristics

Base
Characteristics
Common-Emitter Amplifier Currents
(3 . 2 mA−2. 2 mA)
Ideal Currents: β AC =
( 30 μA − 20 μA )
I E = IC + IB IC = a IE
1 mA
Actual Currents ¿ |
10 μA V CE =7. 5
IC = a IE + ICBO ¿ 100
where ICBO = minority collector current
 ICBO is usually so small that it can be ignored,
2 .7 mA
except in high power transistors and in high β DC= |
temperature environments. 25 μA V CE=7. 5
When IB = 0 mA the transistor is in cutoff, but there is =108
some minority current flowing called ICEO. Relationship between amplification factors b and a
 β β=
α
α=
β+1 α−1

Relationship Between Currents

I C =βI B I E =( β +1) I B

Common–Collector Configuration
The input is on the base and the output is on
the emitter.

Power Dissipation

Common-base:

The characteristics are similar to those of the

PCmax =V CB I C
common-emitter configuration, except the vertical axis Common-emitter:
is IE.
PCmax=V CE I C
Common-collector:

PCmax =V CE I E

Transistor Specification Sheet

Operating Limits for Each Configuration

VCE is at maximum and IC is at minimum (ICmax=
ICEO) in the cutoff region. Transistor Terminal Identification
IC is at maximum and VCE is at minimum (VCE max =
VCEsat = VCEO) in the saturation region.
The transistor operates in the active region
between saturation and cutoff.