

The advantage is that it makes the off transition faster since the transistor is in the "linear" region instead of in saturation. NPN junction bipolar transistor with reverse biased collector-base: (a) Adding forward bias to base-emitter junction, results in (b) a small base current and large emitter and collector currents.

The on state voltage will be a little higher since the transistor isn't fully saturated. When the collector gets low when it's nearly in saturation, it steals base current which keeps the transistor just at the edge of saturation. A Schottky diode is integrated into the transistor from base to collector. This is used to advantage in Schottky logic.

Lets explore how a transistor (more specifically a Bipolar junction transistor) works as an amplifier. One interesting thing is that the collector of a saturated transistor is actually below the base voltage. About Transcript Amplifying an electric signal. That's not very scientific and only roughly described the semiconductor physics, but it's a good enough model to keep in your mind as a first order explanation. There are extra "unused" charges in the base that take a little while to drain out. One artifact of saturation is that the transistor will be slow to turn off. Bipolar Junction Transistors are responsible for the transfer of an input signal from a lower resistance circuit to a higher resistance circuit. A saturated transistor typically has around 200mV C-E, but that also can vary a lot by the design of the transistor and the current.
Bipolar junction transistor driver#
These humble components can almost be found everywhere from simple relay driver circuits to complex motherboard circuits, transistors prove their presence. Since the collector of a NPN will act like a current sink and in saturation the external circuit isn't giving it as much current as it could pass, the collector voltage will go as low as it can. Bipolar Junction Transistor Transistors are one of the very important components used in electronic circuit constructions.
