Bipolar Junction Transistors 3-1. PRINCIPLE OF OPERATION In 1948 John Bardeen and Walter Brattain published the first paper on a Bipolar Junction Transistor (BJT). W. Shockley (1949) developed the first theoretical model for bipolar junction transistors, which still forms the foundation for the understanding of these devices, The discovery of the bipolar junction transistor started the revolutionary development of semiconductor electronics. Today the bipolar junction transistor remains one of the most important discrete devices as well as an important com- ponent of integrated circuits. Bipolar junction transistors are three-terminal devices that can be used as amplifiers or logic elements. The schematic device structures of p-n-p and n-p-n transistors along with their circuit symbols are shown in Fig. 3-1-1. As can be seen from the figure, a bipolar junction transistor comprises two back-to-back p-n junctions. An emitter region and a base region form the first p-n junction. The second p-n junction is formed between the base and collector region. If the base region were long compared with the diffusion length of the minority carriers in the 238Sec. 3-1. Principle of Operation 239 eo Emitter Collector Base Emitter (a) nt 7 fo Emitter Base Collector Base Fig. 34-1. Schematic device struc- tures and circuit symbols for p°-n-p~ (a) and n*-p-n™ (b) bipolar junction Emitter Collector transistors. Superscripts + and — mean higher and lower doping levels, respec- Oo) tively. base (holes for a p-n-p transistor and electrons for aa n-p-n transistor), the equiva- lent circuit of the device would have included two diodes connected as shown in Figs. 3-I-2a and b. In fact, the opposite is true: the base region is made to be much shorter than the diffusion length of the minority carriers. Therefore, the emitter- base and collector-base junctions affect each other. In the equivalent circuit this may be represented by controlled current sources as shown in Figs. 3-1-2c and 3- 1-24. This interaction between the emitter-base and collector-base junctions (de- scribed by controlled current sources in Fig. 3-1-2) is crucial for BJT operation. ‘As shown in Fig. 3-1-1, the emitter region has the highest doping. The collector region is doped the lowest. The doping level in the base region is smaller than that in the emitter region but higher than that in the collector region. A typical doping profile of an n-p-n bipolar junction transistor is shown in Fig. 3-1-3a. The reasons for such a choice of doping levels as well as for nonuniformity of the doping profile in the emitter and base will be exptained shortly. We will first240 Bipolar Junction Transistors Chap. 3 Emitter Collector Emitter Collector Bese Rate pnp pen mn Cy) Emitter Collector Emitter Collector Base Base pep mpm © @ Fig. 3-1-2. Simplified equivalent circuits of p-n-p transistor with a very long base (a), n-p-n transistor with a very long base (b), more realistic equivalent circuits of p-n-p (c) and n-p-n (d) transistors with base lengths smaller than diffusion lengths of minority carriers. consider a transistor with uniform and abruptly changing impurity distributions, as shown in Fig, 3-1-3b. The qualitative band diagram of an n-p-n bipolar junction transistor in equi- librium is shown in Fig. 3-1-4a. Under typical operating conditions the emitter- base junction is forward biased, whereas the collector-base junction is reverse biased (see Fig. 3-1-4b). Hence, the electron concentration in the base at the emitter-base junction is much larger than the equilibrium concentration of minor- ity carriers (electrons) in the base, Myo = ni/Na, Where ni is the intrinsic carrier concentration in the base region. As shown in Chapter 2, the concentration of minority carriers at the edge of the depletion region is related to the voltage drop across the junction and to the equilibrium concentration of the minority carriers: Noe = nylXe) = Moo EXP(Vre/ Vin) >> Moo. (3-1-1)