Electronic Circuits

EE 359-Lecture 2

Prof. Uf Tureli
Dept. of ECE
Stevens Institute of Technology

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 Course Outline
 Syllabus and announcements
http://koala.ece.stevens-tech.edu/~utureli/EE359
 Review of Diodes

 HW 5th Ed.: 2.100,3.18,3.19,3.26

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Basic Semiconductors
Diode Structure

Symbol

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 Diodes

Fig. 3.1 The ideal diode: (a) diode circuit symbol; (b) i-v characteristic; (c) equivalent
circuit in the reverse direction; (d) equivalent circuit in the forward direction.
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 Diode Circuits

During positive cycle, diode

allow current to pass through
and output voltage is positive

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 Diode Characterization
 Diodes have a nonlinear 
i  I s e v / nVT  1 
response to voltage
 We model different
regions of operation
Forward Bias
 
i  I s e v / nVT  1
Reverse Bias
i  I s
Breakdown
Fig. 3.7 The i-v characteristic of a silicon junction
diode.

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 Diode Regions
 Diodes have
negligible current
when biased in reverse
direction
 Diodes have a 0.7V
drop in the forward
direction
Fig. 3.8 The diode i-v relationship
with some scales expanded and others
compressed in order to reveal details.
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 Forward-Bias Region
 Terminal voltage v is positive
i  I s (e v / nVT  1) VT 
kT
23 q
k=Boltzmann’s constant= 1.38 x10
T=absolute temparature in K=273+ Celcius
q=magnitude of electronic charge= 1.6 x10 19 C
1<n<2, depending on material, assume n=1 i  I S e v / nVT  v  nVT ln
i
IS
EXAMPLE: Diode with n=1 displays forward voltage of 0.7V at 1mA. Find I S
SOLUTION: i  I S ev / nV  I S  ie  v / nV
T T

For n=1: I S  10 3 e 700/ 25  6.9 x10 16 A  10 15 A

For n=2: I S  10 3 e 700/ 50  8.3x10 10 A  10 9 A

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 Reverse-Bias Region
 Terminal voltage v is negative
i  I s

v is negative and a few times larger than VT

 Current in the reverse direction is constant and equal to

and called saturation current. I S
 Typically, real life diodes exhibit much larger reverse
currents I S  1014  1015 A

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 Break Down Region
 Knee of diode I-v characteristic, the voltage
is less than Zener voltage.

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 Physical Structure on PN
Junction
 We can simplify
Diode physics by
modeling it as a 2D
PN junction
 PN junction:P and N
regions by different
dopings: n  p  ni Fig. 3.10 Simplified physical
 Diffusion & Drift structure of the junction diode. (

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 Reverse-Bias PN Junction
Fig. 3.13 The pn junction excited by a constant-current source
I in the reverse direction. To avoid breakdown, I is kept
smaller than Is. Note that the depletion layer widens and the
barrier voltage increases by Vr volts, which appears between
the terminals as a reverse voltage.

 Reverse Bias:
Drift current Is, indep.
of voltage,
IS  ID  I

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 Depletion Capacitance
 Charge stored in the PN junction depends
on the voltage across junction.

Fig. 3.14 The charge stored on either side of the depletion layer as a function of the reverse voltage Vr.

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When the pn junction is
excited by a constant-
current source supplying
a current I in the
forward direction:
The depletion layer
narrows and the barrier
voltage decreases by V
volts, which appears as
an external voltage in
the forward direction.

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Fig. 3.17 Minority-carrier distribution in a forward-biased pn junction. It is assumed that the p region is
more heavily doped than the n region; NA ND.
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 Modeling
 Approximate the
diode forward
characteristic with
two straight lines.

Fig. 3.20

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 Simplified Piecewise Linear
Approximation
 Diode
Is nonlinear

Fig. 3.21 Piecewise-linear model of the diode forward

characteristic and its equivalent circuit representation.

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 Constant Voltage Drop Model
 Development of the
constant-voltage-drop
model of the diode
forward
characteristics.
 A vertical straight
line (b) is used to
approximate the fast-
rising exponential

Fig. 3.23 Development of the constant-voltage-drop model of the diode forward characteristics. A vertical straight line (b) is used to
approximate the fast-rising exponential.

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Fig. 3.24 The constant-voltage-drop model of the diode
forward characteristic and its equivalent circuit
representation.
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Fig.3.25 Development of the diode small-signal model. Note
that the numerical values shown are for a diode with n = 2.

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Fig. 3.26 Equivalent circuit model for the diode for small
changes around bias point Q. The incremental resistance rd is
the inverse of the slope of the tangent at Q, and VD0 is the
intercept of the tangent on the vD axis (see Fig. 3.25). 20
Fig. 3.27 The analysis of the circuit in (a), which contains
both dc and signal quantities, can be performed by replacing
the diode with the model of Fig. 3.26, as shown in (b). This
allows separating the dc analysis [the circuit in (c)] from the
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signal analysis [the circuit in (d)].
Fig. 3.30 Circuit
symbol for a zener
diode.

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Fig. 3.31 The diode i-v
characteristic with the
breakdown region shown in
some detail.
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Fig. 3.32 Model for the
zener diode.

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Fig. 3.36 Block diagram of a dc power supply.

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Fig. 3.37 (a) Half-wave rectifier. (b) Equivalent circuit of the half-wave rectifier with the diode
replaced with its battery-plus-resistance model. (c) transfer characteristic of the rectifier circuit.
(d) Input and output waveforms, assuming that rD R. 26
Fig. 3.38 Full-wave rectifier utilizing a transformer with a center-tapped secondary winding. (a) Circuit.
(b) Transfer characteristic assuming a constant-voltage-drop model for the diodes. (c) Input and output
waveforms. 27
Fig. 3.39 The bridge rectifier: (a) circuit and (b) input and output waveforms.

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Fig. 3.41 Voltage and current waveforms in the peak rectifier
circuit with CR T. The diode is assumed ideal.
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Fig. 3.46 A variety of basic limiting circuits. 30
Fig. 4.1 A simplified structure of the npn transistor.

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