Ambo University

Institute of Technology
Department of Computer Science
Digital Electronics assignment One (10%)

Direction: All groups containing maximum of 3 students have to do all the

questions and report their group works to the instructor.

Submission Date: January 05, 2020 G.C

#Questions
1. What is the Transistor? How to fabricate it or Transistor doping or Transistor charging
principles?
 Transistor is a device that regulates current or voltage flow and acts as switch or
gate for electronic signals.
 Transistor was invented by W.H. Brattain, John Bardeen and William Shockley in
1947. The word transistor was derived from transfer resistor, as they transfer signals
from low resistance to high resistance.
 It is a three-layer semiconductor device in which an n-type semiconductor is
sandwiched between two p-type layers or a p-type semiconductor is sandwiched
between two n-type layers.
 It is extensively used in amplifiers, digital switches and oscillator circuits.
 A transistor has three terminals, namely emitter (E), base (B) and collector (C). We
have two types of transistors, npn and pnp.
 The emitter is heavily doped and injects a large number of majority carriers into the
base.
 The emitter is always forward biased with respect to the base. In pnp transistors,
majority carriers are holes and in npn transistors, majority carriers are electrons.
 Transistors are three terminal active devices made from different semiconductor
materials that can act as either an insulator or a conductor by the application of a
small signal voltage.
 The transistor's ability to change between these two states enables it to have two
basic functions: "switching" (digital electronics) or "amplification" (analogue
electronics).
2. What are BJT and JFET transistors?

 Bipolar Transistors are current regulating devices that control the amount of current
flowing through them in proportion to the amount of biasing voltage applied to their
base terminal acting like a current-controlled switch.

 a bipolar junction transistor is constructed using two PN junctions in the main

current path between the Emitter and the Collector terminals.
 The Bipolar Transistor basic construction consists of two PN-junctions producing
three connecting terminals with each terminal being given a name to identify it from
the other two. These three terminals are known and labelled as the Emitter ( E ), the
Base ( B ) and the Collector ( C ) respectively.
 There are two basic types of bipolar transistor construction, NPN and PNP, which
basically describes the physical arrangement of the P-type and N-type
semiconductor materials from which they are made.
 . The principle of operation of the two transistor types NPN and PNP, is exactly the
same the only difference being in their biasing and the polarity of the power supply
for each type.
  Junction Field Effect Transistor (JFET) is probably the simplest
transistor available.
 This type of transistor has no junctions but instead has a narrow
"Channel" of N-type or P-type silicon with electrical connections at
either end commonly called the DRAIN and the SOURCE
respectively.
 these devices are simply an area of doped silicon with two
diffusions of the opposite doping

3. Describe the working Principles of BJT transistors like current flow, current relations,
voltage relations, etc.
 It has a voltage gain that is always less than "1" (unity). The load resistance of the
common collector transistor receives both the base and collector currents giving a
large current gain (as with the common emitter configuration) therefore, providing
good current amplification with very little voltage gain.
4. How do BJT and JFET transistors differ?

Junction Field Effect Transistor (JFET) Bipolar Junction Transistor (BJT)

1 Low voltage gain High voltage gain
2 High current gain Low current gain
3 Very input impedance Low input impedance
4 High output impedance Low output impedance
5 Low noise generation Medium noise generation
6 Fast switching time Medium switching time
7 Easily damaged by static Robust
8 Some require an input to turn it "OFF" Requires zero input to turn it "OFF"
9 Voltage controlled device Current controlled device
10 Exhibits the properties of a Resistor
11 More expensive than bipolar Cheap
12 Difficult to bias Easy to bias