EE-301 Lab Manual, ME Department, Wah Engineering College

Lab Experiment # 7
Transistor characteristics and its application as a switch

Objective: To study the Transistors characteristics and its application as a switch.

Apparatus:
 Resistors
 Connecting Wires
 Transistor
 Battery
 LED’s
 Switch

Transistor:

A transistor is a semiconductor device used to amplify and switch electronic signals

and electrical power. It is composed of semiconductor material with at least three terminals for
connection to an external circuit. A voltage or current applied to one pair of the transistor's
terminals changes the current through another pair of terminals. Because the controlled
(output) power can be higher than the controlling (input) power, a transistor can amplify a signal.
Today, some transistors are packaged individually, but many more are found embedded
in integrated circuits.
The transistor is the fundamental building block of modern electronic devices, and is ubiquitous
in modern electronic systems. Following its development in 1947 by John Bardeen, Walter
Brattain, and William Shockley, the transistor revolutionized the field of electronics, and paved
the way for smaller and cheaper radios, calculators, and computers, among other things. The
transistor is on the list of IEEE milestones in electronics, and the inventors were jointly awarded
the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for their achievement

Fig-1: Transistor configuration

 EE-301 Lab Manual, ME Department, Wah Engineering College

Transistor as a switch:

The transistor is an amplifier, but can be used as a switch by using the transistor in its saturated
region. This can be used to switch a significantly larger current than the input signal. As a switch
the transistor is often used to take a signal from a digital circuit and use it to switch larger loads
than the integrated circuit (IC) can provide.
The circuit below shows a common simple configuration for a transistor switch circuit. It
comprises of one NPN transistor, and depicts two resistors. The resistor R L is not normally a
resistor, but represents the resistive value of a device that is being switched. This could be a lamp
or relay or some other device that needs a larger current than the input is able to drive directly.
The resistor at the base Rb is a resistor used to prevent damage at the base of the transistor. This
needs to be large enough to prevent damage to the transistor, but should still allow sufficient
current to ensure the transistor switches on. Details of how to determine the size of the resistor
are explained below.

Fig-2: Transistor as switch

For a transistor to act as a switch it needs to be activated as the saturation region. When switched
on in saturation the transistor acts almost as a short circuit allowing current through the load.
If the load being switched is an inductive device, such as a motor, solenoid or relay then a diode
should be connected in the reverse direction across the load to prevent any back EMF from
damaging the transistor.
Whilst the aim of this is to keep the maths to a minimum we need to use some simple formula to
determine the appropriate value for the base resistor Rb.

Fig-3: Transistor as switch circuit diagram

 EE-301 Lab Manual, ME Department, Wah Engineering College

Input Signal:

Fig-4: Input signal via oscilloscope

Fig-5: Hardware configuration

Conclusion:

Transistor has many applications. Transistor can be used as switch. As a switch the transistor is
often used to take a signal from a digital circuit and use it to switch larger loads than the
integrated circuit (IC) can provide.