Construction and Woking of BJT

In 1947 J. Barden, W. Bratterin and W. Shockley invented transistor. The term transistor was given by
John R. Pierce. Through initially it was called the solid state version of the vacuum triode, but the
term transistor has survived. As we will go through the topic, we will know about the transistor,
mainly bipolar junction transistor or BJT. Nowadays the use of BJTs has declined towards CMOS
technology in the design of ICs. The word transistor is derived from the words Transfer and
Resistor it describes the operation of a BJT i.e. the transfer of an input signal from a low resistance
circuit to a high resistance circuit. This type of transistor is made up of semiconductors. We know that
silicon (Si) and Germanium (Ge) are the examples of semiconductors. Now, why this is called
junction transistor? The answer lies behind the construction. We already know what is p-type and ntype semiconductors.
Now, in this type of transistor any one type of semiconductors is sandwiched between the other type
of semiconductor. For example, an n - type can be sandwiched between two p-type semiconductors or
similarly one p-type can be sandwiched between two n-type semiconductors. These are called p-n-p
and n-p-n transistors respectively. We will discuss about them later. Now as there are two junctions of
different types of semiconductors, this is called junction transistor. Its called bipolar because the
conduction takes place due to both electrons as well as holes.

Definition of BJT
A bipolar junction transistor is a three terminal semiconductor device consisting of two p-n junctions
which is able to amplify or magnify a signal. It is a current controlled device. The three terminals of
the BJT are the base, the collector and the emitter. A signal of small amplitude if applied to the base is
available in the amplified form at the collector of the transistor. This is the amplification provided by
the BJT. Note that it does require an external source of DC power supply to carry out the
amplification process. The basic diagrams of the two types of bipolar junction transistors mentioned
above are given below.

From the above figure, we can see that every BJT has three parts named emitter, base and collector. J E
and JC represent junction of emitter and junction of collector respectively. Now initially it is sufficient

for us to know that emitter based junction is forward biased and collector base junctions is reverse
biased. The next topic will describe the two types of the transistors.

N-P-N Bipolar Junction Transistor

As started before in n-p-n bipolar transistor one p - type semiconductor resides between two n-type
semiconductors the diagram below a n-p-n transistor is shown

Now IE, IC is emitter current and collect current respectively and V EB and VCB are emitter base voltage
and collector base voltage respectively. According to convention if for the emitter, base and collector
current IE, IB and IC current goes into the transistor the sign of the current is taken as positive and if
current goes out from the transistor then the sign is taken as negative. We can tabulate the different
currents and voltages inside the n-p-n transistor.
Transistor type

IE

IB

IC

VEB

n-pn

P-N-P Bipolar Junction Transistor

Similarly for p - n - p bipolar junction transistor a n-type semiconductors is sandwiched between
two p-type semiconductors. The diagram of a p - n - p transistor is shown below
For p-n-p transistors, current enters into the transistor through the emitter terminal. Like any bipolar
junction transistor, the emitter-base junction is forward biased and the collector-base junction is
reverse biased. We can tabulate the emitter, base and collector current, as well as the emitter base,
collector base and collector emitter voltage for p-n-p transistors also.

Transistor type

IE

IB

IC

VEB

p-np

Working Principle of BJT

Figure shows an n-p-n transistor biased in the active region (See transistor biasing), the BE junction is
forward biased whereas the CB junction is reversed biased. The width of the depletion region of the
BE junction is small as compared to that of the CB junction. The forward bias at the BE junction
reduces the barrier potential and causes the electrons to flow from the emitter to base. As the base is
thin and lightly doped it consists of very few holes so some of the electrons from the emitter (about
2%) recombine with the holes present in the base region and flow out of the base terminal. This
constitutes the base current, it flows due to recombination of electrons and holes (Note that the
direction of conventional current flow is opposite to that of flow of electrons). The remaining large
number of electrons will cross the reverse biased collector junction to constitute the collector current.
Thus by KCL,
collector current.

The base current is very small as compared to emitter and

Here, the majority charge carriers are electrons. The

operation of a p-n-p transistor is same as of the n-p-n, the only difference is that the majority charge
carriers are holes instead of electrons. Only a small part current flows due to majority carriers and
most of the current flows due to minority charge carriers in a BJT. Hence, they are called as minority
carrier devices.