Transistor

Transistors are tiny switches that can be triggered by electric signals. They are
the basic building blocks of microchips, and roughly define the difference
between electric and electronic devices. They permeate so many facets of our
daily lives, in everything from milk cartons to laptops, illustrating just how
useful they are. The essential usefulness of a transistor comes from its ability
to use a small signal applied between one pair of its terminals to control a
much larger signal at another pair of terminals. This property is called gain. It
can produce a stronger output signal, a voltage or current, which is
proportional to a weaker input signal; that is, it can act as an amplifier.
Alternatively, the transistor can be used to turn current on or off in a circuit as
an electrically controlled switch, where the amount of current is determined by
other circuit elements.

There are two types of transistors, which have slight differences in how they
are used in a circuit. A bipolar transistor has terminals labeled base, collector,
and emitter. A small current at the base terminal (that is, flowing between the
base and the emitter) can control or switch a much larger current between the
collector and emitter terminals. For a field-effect transistor, the terminals are
labeled gate, source, and drain, and a voltage at the gate can control a current
between source and drain.

The image represents a typical bipolar transistor in a circuit. Charge will flow
between emitter and collector terminals depending on the current in the base.
Because internally the base and emitter connections behave like a
semiconductor diode, a voltage drop develops between base and emitter while

the base current exists. The amount of this voltage depends on the material
the transistor is made from, and is referred to as VBE.

Transistor as an amplifier

The common-emitter amplifier is designed so that a small change in voltage

(Vin) changes the small current through the base of the transistor; the
transistor's current amplification combined with the properties of the circuit
mean that small swings in Vin produce large changes in Vout.
Various configurations of single transistor amplifier are possible, with some
providing current gain, some voltage gain, and some both.
From mobile phones to televisions, vast numbers of products include amplifiers
for sound reproduction, radio transmission, and signal processing. The first
discrete-transistor audio amplifiers barely supplied a few hundred milliwatts,
but power and audio fidelity gradually increased as better transistors became
available and amplifier architecture evolved.

Modern transistor audio amplifiers of up to a few hundred watts are common

and relatively inexpensive.

Types
Transistors are categorized by:
semiconductor material: the metalloids germanium (first used in 1947) and
silicon (first used in 1954)in amorphous, polycrystalline and monocrystalline
form, the compounds gallium arsenide (1966) and silicon carbide (1997), the
alloy silicon-germanium (1989), the allotrope of carbon graphene (research
ongoing since 2004), etc. (see Semiconductor material);
structure: BJT, JFET, IGFET (MOSFET), insulated-gate bipolar transistor, "other
types";
electrical polarity (positive and negative): npn, pnp (BJTs), n-channel, pchannel (FETs);
maximum power rating: low, medium, high;
maximum operating frequency: low, medium, high, radio (RF), microwave
frequency (the maximum effective frequency of a transistor in a commonemitter or common-source circuit is denoted by the term fT, an abbreviation for
transition frequencythe frequency of transition is the frequency at which the
transistor yields unity voltage gain)
application: switch, general purpose, audio, high voltage, super-beta, matched
pair;
physical packaging: through-hole metal, through-hole plastic, surface mount,
ball grid array, power modules (see Packaging);
amplification factor hFE, F (transistor beta)[37] or gm (transconductance).
Hence, a particular transistor may be described as silicon, surface-mount, BJT,
npn, low-power, high-frequency switch.
A popular way to remember which symbol represents which type of transistor is
to look at the arrow and how it is arranged. Within an NPN transistor symbol,
the arrow will Not Point iN. Conversely, within the PNP symbol you see that the
arrow Points iN Proudly.

Bipolar junction transistor

A bipolar junction transistor (bipolar transistor or BJT) is a type of transistor that
uses both electron and hole charge carriers. In contrast, unipolar transistors,
such as field-effect transistors, only use one kind of charge carrier. For their
operation, BJTs use two junctions between two semiconductor types, n-type and
p-type.

BJTs are manufactured in two types, NPN and PNP, and are available as
individual components, or fabricated in integrated circuits, often in large
numbers. The basic function of a BJT is to amplify current. This allows BJTs to be
used as amplifiers or switches, giving them wide applicability in electronic
equipment, including computers, televisions, mobile phones, audio amplifiers,
industrial control, and radio transmitters.

The collectoremitter current can be viewed as being controlled by the base

emitter current (current control), or by the baseemitter voltage (voltage
control). These views are related by the currentvoltage relation of the base
emitter junction, which is just the usual exponential currentvoltage curve of a
p-n junction (diode).

The physical explanation for collector current is the concentration of minority

carriers in the base region. Due to low level injection (in which there are much
fewer excess carriers than normal majority carriers) the ambipolar transport
rates (in which the excess majority and minority carriers flow at the same rate)
is in effect determined by the excess minority carriers.
Darlington transistor
the Darlington transistor (often called a Darlington pair) is a compound
structure consisting of two bipolar transistors (either integrated or separated
devices) connected in such a way that the current amplified by the first
transistor is amplified further by the second one.[1] This configuration gives a
much higher current gain than each transistor taken separately and, in the
case of integrated devices, can take less space than two individual transistors
because they can use a shared collector. Integrated Darlington pairs come
packaged singly in transistor-like packages or as an array of devices (usually
eight) in an integrated circuit.

The Darlington configuration was invented by Bell Laboratories engineer Sidney

Darlington in 1953. He patented the invention of having two or three
transistors on a single chip sharing a collector.

A similar configuration but with transistors of opposite type (one NPN and one
PNP) is the Sziklai pair, sometimes called the "complementary Darlington".

A Darlington pair behaves like a single transistor with a high current gain
(approximately the product of the gains of the two transistors). In fact,
integrated devices have three leads (B, C, and E), broadly equivalent to those
of a standard transistor.
A general relation between the compound current gain and the individual gains
is given by:
If 1 and 2 are high enough (hundreds), this relation can be approximated with:
Darlington pairs are available as integrated packages or can be made from two
discrete transistors; Q1 (the left-hand transistor in the diagram) can be a low
power type, but normally Q2 (on the right) will need to be high power. The
maximum collector current IC(max) of the pair is that of Q2. A typical integrated
power device is the 2N6282, which includes a switch-off resistor and has a
current gain of 2400 at IC=10A.
A Darlington pair can be sensitive enough to respond to the current passed by
skin contact even at safe voltages. Thus it can form the input stage of a touchsensitive switch.
Darlington transistors can be used in circuits involving motors, relays, or other
current-hungry components connected to computers. The current is amplified
from the normal low level of the computer output line to the amount needed by
the connected device.
A typical modern device has a current gain of 1000 or more, so that only a
small base current is needed to make the pair switch on. However, this high
current gain comes with several drawbacks.