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Introduction to BC548
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Hi Friends! Glad to see you here. I hope you’re well today. In this post, I’ll
walk you through the Introduction to BC548.  BC548 is a general-purpose
transistor that falls under the family of NPN transistors. It carries three pins
that are mainly used for external connection with the circuit. The small
current at one terminal is used to control the large current at other terminals.
Moreover, it can drive loads under 500mA and is available in TO – 92
package. I suggest you read this post all the way through as you’ll get to
know all nuts and bolts of BC548 transistor i.e. pinout, working principle,
power ratings, applications, and physical dimensions. Let’s jump right in.
Introduction to BC548
BC548 is an NPN general-purpose transistor, comes with three pins
named emitter, base and collector.
A small current at the base side is used to control large current at the
collector and emitter terminals. The reason, it’s normally called a current
 controlled device.

Decent current gain and power dissipation make it a suitable pick for
amplification circuits and pre-amplification stages in other electronic
applications. Moreover, it is also used as a switch to carry the load below
500mA.
This BC548 transistor belongs to the NPN family where it contains three
layers i.e. two N-doped layers and one P-doped layer. The P-doped layer
is sandwiched between two N-doped layers.
Also, it contains two PN junctions where one is reverse biased and the
other is forward biased.
The NPN transistor is like an electron valve where the base terminal
controls the movement of electrons. It is widely used for amplification
purposes in many electrical and electronics projects.
Plus, electrons behave like majority carriers in NPN transistors whereas in
PNP transistor holes behave like majority carriers. In conclusion, the
mobility of electrons is better than the mobility of holes, thus NPN
transistors are better and faster than PNP transistors.

1. BC548 Pinout
BC548 contains three pins named:
1: Emitter
2: Base
3: Collector

Following figure shows the BC548 pinout:

 All these terminals are different in terms of operation and doping
concentration.
The base terminal controls the current, emitter is used to emit the number
of electrons when voltage is applied at the base terminal which is then
collected by the collector.
The small increase in input voltage applied at the base terminal produces
a large change in output voltage across both collector and emitter
terminals. This practice is used for amplification purposes.
The emitter terminal is highly doped as compared to collector and base
terminals. Plus, the collector voltage is larger than the base voltage.

2. BC548 Pin Configuration

BC548 transistor is used in three main configurations as follows:
Common base configuration.
Common emitter configuration.
:
 Common emitter configuration.
Common collector configuration.

Common emitter configuration carries exact voltage and current ratings

mainly used for amplification.
The amplification factor is used to define the nature of amplification. It is
called beta and is denoted by ß. It is a ratio between collector current and
base current. As it’s a ratio between the same factor i.e. current, it
contains no unit. In this NPN transistor, the amplification factor ranges
from 110 to 800.
Similarly, the ratio between collector current and emitter current is called
current gain and is mainly known as alpha, denoted by a. The alpha value
lies between 0.95 to 0.99 but most of the time its value is taken as unity.
:
3. BC548 Working Principle
When the base terminal is grounded, both emitter and collector terminals
remain disconnected.
When the voltage is applied at the base terminal, it gets biased, forming a
bridge between collector and emitter.
As this is an NPN transistor, the current will flow from collector to emitter,
unlike PNP transistors where current flows from emitter to collector.
Though both electrons and holes play a key role in conductivity, in the
case of NPN transistors, electrons are major charge carriers.
The base terminal controls the number of electrons passing from collector
to emitter and appears positive with respect to the emitter terminal.
The applied voltage at the base terminals draws a small current which is
then used to police the large current at the collector and emitter terminals.

4. BC548 Power Ratings

The following figure shows the absolute maximum ratings of BC548:
:
 Collector-Base voltage is 30V. While Emitter-Base voltage and Collector-
Emitter voltages are 5V and 30V respectively.
The Collector current is 500mA with maximum power dissipation 625mW
at temperature 25C.
And the current gain ranges from 110 to 800.
It’s important to note that these values are called stress ratings. Before
you employ this transistor into the required circuit, make sure these ratings
don’t cross the absolute maximum ratings, else you can risk your
transistor and thus the entire project.
Plus, if these ratings are applied for an extended period, they can
influence the device reliability.
Note: these values are measured at T = 25 C

5. BC548 Alternatives
The following are equivalent transistors of BC548:
2N2222
2N3904
BC547
BC549
BC550

They all belong to the NPN family. The PNP complementary of BC548 is
BC558. The type of transistor you use depends on the ratings of load you
intend to drive i.e. in case of BC548 you can drive loads under 500mA.
6. BC548 Applications
NPN type transistors are used in circuits when you intend to sink the current.
BC548 is used in the following applications:
Used in Darlington pairs to amplify weak signals.
It can be employed in sensor circuits.
:
 It can be employed in sensor circuits.
Driving loads under 500mA.
Used in audio amplification.
Used in audio Amplifier Stages.

7. BC548 Physical dimensions

The following diagram shows the physical dimension of the BC548:
:
Recall, BC548 is a bipolar NPN junction transistor and is considered as a
current-controlled device where small current at the base is used to control
large current at the collector and emitter terminals. Plus, it can drive loads
under 500mA and is available in TO – 92 package. That's all for today. I hope
you find this read helpful. If you have any question, you can approach me in
the section below, I'd love to help you the best way I can. Feel free to keep
us updated with your valuable feedback and suggestions. They help us
create quality content. Thank you for reading this article.

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Syed Zain Nasir

I am Syed Zain Nasir, the founder of <a href=https://www.TheEngineeringProjects.com/>The
Engineering Projects</a> (TEP). I am a programmer since 2009 before that I just search things,
make small projects and now I am sharing my knowledge through this platform.I also work as a
freelancer and did many projects related to programming and electrical circuitry. <a
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