Bipolar Transistor

Device Semiconductor Course

SM Sze, Semiconductor Devices Physics
and Technology
Edited by Adang Suwandi Ahmad
P-N Junction Breakdown
P-N Junction Planar Technology
First Transistor Bipolar
Bipolar Transistror Space-Charge
Current Gain
 Mathematical Model of Current Gain

An important parameter in the characterization of bipolar transistors is the

common-base current gain ao. The quantity is defined as

Substituting Eq. 1 into Wq. 4 yields

The first term on the right-hand side is called the emitter efficiency y. which
measures the injected hole current to the total emitter current
 Bipolar Transistor Active Mode
Therefore

For a well-designed transistor, both and approach unity, and a0 is very close to 1.
We can express the collector current in terms of 0. The collector current can be described
by substituting Eqs. 6 and 7 into Eq. 2:

Where ICn corresponds to the collector-base current flowing with the emitter open-circuited
(IE = 0). We shall designate ICn as ICBO, where the first two subscripts (CB) refer to the two
terminals between which the current (or voltage) is measured and the third subscript (o)
refers to the state of the third terminal with respect to the second. In the present case, ICBO
designates the leakage current between the collector and the base with the emitter-base
junction open. The collector current for the common- base configuration is then given by

We have now developed a set of expression for the p-n-p transistor operated in the active
mode. In the next section, we shall study the static current-voltage characterictics and
derive equations for the terminal currents in terms of suchs semiconductor parameters as
doping and minority carrier lifetime
 Bipolar Transistor Static Characteristics
4.2 STATIC CHARACTERISTICS OF BIPOLAR TRANSISTORS

4.2.1 Ideal Transistor Currents

The derive the current-voltage expressions for an ideal transistor, we assume

the following:
(1) The device has uniform doping in each region.
(2) There is low-level injection.
(3) There are no generation-recombination currents in the depletion regions.
(4) There are no series resistances in the device.

These assumtions can be used to obtain the current-voltage relationship of

the emitter-base junction and the collector-base junction in a manner similar to that
for an ideal diode, as discussed in Chapter 3
ACTIVE MODE Figure 4c shows the electric-field distributions across the junction
depletion regions. The minority carrier distribution in the neutral base region can be
described by the field-free steady-state continuity equation
Equation 12, subjected to the boundary condition expressed in Eq. 13, becomes
Minority Current Distribution in The Base
In The Active Mode
Figure 6 shows the calculated results of Eq. 14, where the normalizes minority
carrier concentration is plotted against the distance fo different values of W/Lp. It
is evident that for W/Lp >> 1, the distribution approaches the simple exponential
distribution of an isolated p-n junction. In the other extreme, where W/Lp << 1,
the distribution approaches a straight line given by

The minority carrier distributions in a typical transistor operated under active

mode are shown in Fig. 7, where the central base region corresponds to that
shown in Fig. 6 for W/Lp 0.1. The distributions in the emitter and collector can
be obtained in a manner similar to the one used to obtain the distributions for the
base region. Tge boundary conditions are
Bipolar Transistors Modes of Operation
Base Resistance
Base Resistance To achieve high current gain, the base width must be very
narrow. Therefore, the base resistance can be quite high. Figure 12a shows a cross
section of a p-n-p transistor with two base contracts, one on each side of the
emitter. The electrons are supplied form the base contacts and flow toward the
center of the emitter causing the base-emitter voltage drop to vary with position
along the base-emitter junction. As a first-order approximation with reference to
Fig. 12a, the forward bias of the emitter junction above point A is

The emitter bias voltage at point D is

Which can be substantially larger than VEA if RAD is large

 Because the forward bias is largest at the edge of the emitter (point D), the
injection of holes will be greatest there. Therefore, must of the emitter current
will be crowded near the edge of the emitter with only a smal amount of current in the
central portion of the emitter (Fig. 12b). this effect is called emitter crowding, which causes
nonuniform distribution of the emitter current. Although this crowding can have desirable
effect of reducing the base resistance, it can also give rise to undesirable high-injection
effects such as reduced emitter efficiency. The most effective way to minimize the emitter
crowding is to distribute the emitter current along a relatively large emitter edge, thereby
reducing the current density at any one point. We thus need an emitter region with a large
perimeter compared with its area. A common approach is to use interdigitated geometry
as shown in Fig. 13. The emitter and base contact stripes are interlaced to provide a large
perimeter for handling a large current
Base Width Modulation So far in this chapter we have considered transistor characteristics
using the common-base configuration. However, in circuit applications the common-
emitter configuration is most often used. Figure 14a shows the common-emitter
configuration fo a p-n-p transistor, that is, the emitter lead is common to the input and
output circuits. The collector current for the common emitter configuration can be
obtained by substituting Eq. 3 into Eq. 10:

Solving for IC

We now designate 0 as the common-emitter current gain, which is the incremental

change of IC with respect to an incremental change of IB. From Eq. 43 we obtain

We can also designate ICE0 as

This current corresponds to the collector-emitter leakage current fo IB = 0