ELECTRONICS LABORATORY

EXPERIMENT 4
BJT BIASING
PURPOSE
Experiment the dependence of the common emitter current gain on collector
current will be examined, and BJT biasing circuits are designed.

THEORY
BJT

The Bipolar Junction Transistor (BJT) is a nonlinear three terminal device with
following dc models:

a) Cutoff mode: VBE < VF, IB=0, IC=0

b) Active mode: VBE VF, VCE VCESAT, IC=FIB+ICEO

(ICEO is usually negligibly small)

c) Saturation mode: VBE VF, VCE = VCESAT, IC < FIB

IC is determined by the external circuit.

(a) (b) (c)

Figure1: NPN BJT dc equivalent circuits: a) Cutoff mode b)Active mode

c)Saturation mode. For PNP BJT circuits, currents and voltages
change directions

In analog circuits, the BJT is operated in the active mode. For this purpose a
biasing circuit is employed. Figure (2) has various biasing circuits that use only one
power supply.

The bias circuit without feedback is the simplest of all: The base current of the BJT
is set by the resistor RB. In the design, RB is set to be (VCC-VBE)/IB.
For the emitter feedback bias circuit, the resistor RE causes negative feedback and
reduces the changes in the operating point.

In the collector feedback bias circuit, the resistor RC has essentially the same effect
as the RE in the emitter feedback bias circuit.

The most common and stable circuit among single source biasing circuits is the
voltage divider biasing circuit. In this circuit, the current in the resistors R1 and R2
is set to a value more than 10 times the base current. This keeps the voltage drop
caused by the base current on these resistors negligibly small. Hence, the voltage
divider formed by R1 and R2 is considered as an independent voltage source to set
the voltage at the base of BJT. The resistor RE provides negative feedback and sets
the emitter current.

(a) (b)

(c) (d)
Figure 2: BJT Biasing circuits: a) Without feedback b) Emitter feedback
c) Collector feedback d) Voltage divider
The operating point of a transistor in a circuit depends not only on the voltage
sources and resistors, but also on VF, F and ICO of the transistor. The BJT
parameters may vary due to production line spread or temperature. As the variation
of these parameters will affect the operating point, the stability of the operating
point should be considered during the bias circuit design. To observe this variation,
the following stability factors should be investigated:

PRE-LAB

1) Obtain 2 NPN bipolar junction transistors- one general purpose, one low
power transistor from an electronics store. Learn the F values of the transistors
that you buy and use these values in your design.
2) For the general purpose transistor, design 4 bias circuits that are given above
so that IC=1mA and VCE=3 V.
3) Determine the operating point (IC and VCE) for each circuit you have designed
by using PSpice simulation program.
4) Replace general purpose transistor with the power transistor and determine
the operating point in each circuit.

Important notes:

1) Those who did not do the prelab will not be accepted to the lab.
2) There will be quiz on Wednesday, 16th November.
3) Bring the transistors with you. You have to buy the transistors beforehand.
4) You will be using your own design in the lab. The resistors that we have in the
lab are the following. If you use a different resistor other than the values specified
below, make sure you bring the resistor with you to the lab:
150 , 680 , 1K , 3.3K , 2.7K , 4.7K , 10K , 12K , 18K , 36K ,
82K , 1M
PROCEDURE

1) Using the circuit in Figure 3, determine for each transistor how the common
emitter current gain of the transistor changes with the collector current. You
may take 8 to 10 readings for each transistor. You may change the resistors
in the circuit if it becomes necessary. Make sure that each transistor operates
in the active mode.

Figure 3: A circuit to measure the common emitter current gain of an NPN bipolar
transistor
2) Build the circuits that you have designed in the preliminary work section.
Determine the operating point of the general purpose transistor experimentally and
compare it with the theoretical operating point.

3) Replace the transistor with the power transistor and determine the operating
point for each bias circuit.