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- From: whit@carson.u.washington.edu (John Whitmore)
- Newsgroups: sci.electronics
- Subject: Re: Grounded Emitter Amplifier Query
- Date: 30 Dec 1992 23:17:42 GMT
- Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
- Lines: 36
- Message-ID: <1htammINNcr8@shelley.u.washington.edu>
- References: <1992Dec29.214231.1135@inmet.camb.inmet.com>
- NNTP-Posting-Host: carson.u.washington.edu
-
- In article <1992Dec29.214231.1135@inmet.camb.inmet.com> bwhite@cobra.camb.inmet.com (Bill White) writes:
- >Hello. I am reading Horowitz and Hill's book on Electronics, but
- >I am having trouble understanding the grounded emitter circuit. In
- >particular, I am having trouble understanding why the grounded emitter
- >is not thermally stable. I believe it, I just don't understand why
-
- >The axioms are:
- > a The Ebers-Moll model of transistor behavior states that under
- > certain conditions conditions which establish a well-conditioned
- > environment the following two equations hold.
- >
- > I_{C} = I_{S}[exp(V_{BE}/V_{T})+1] (*)
- > I_{B} = I_{C}/h_{FE} (**)
- >
- > Where V_{T} depends on temperature, and is kT/q =
- > 25mV@20degreesC, and h_{FE} is a constant.
-
- Only for a small-signal model is h_{FE} constant.
- And, when dealing with power generated in the transistor, the
- leakage current of the collector/base junction is an
- important correction to the external base current.
-
- The current gain, h_{FE}, is a fairly strong function
- of temperature; my 2N2222 data sheet shows this current gain
- at 100 C is roughly 1.6 times the value at room temperature
- (25 C). The leakage current doubles every 10C (rule-of-thumb),
- and the external I_{B} is diminished by the amount of
- the leakage current ('cuz that current comes in over a
- different wire...).
-
- So, two of the important temperature effects are
- simply omitted from this model: they are usually included
- only when a power transistor is used, or when some unstable
- sorts of biasing (like simple common-emitter bias) are employed.
-
- John Whitmore
-