Avalanche transistor

An avalanche transistor is a bipolar junction transistor designed for operation in the region of its collector-current/collector-to-emitter voltage characteristics beyond the collector-to-emitter breakdown voltage, called avalanche breakdown region. This region is characterized by avalanche breakdown, which is a phenomenon similar to Townsend discharge for gases, and negative differential resistance. Operation in the avalanche breakdown region is called avalanche-mode operation: it gives avalanche transistors the ability to switch very high currents with less than a nanosecond rise and fall times (transition times). Transistors not specifically designed for the purpose can have reasonably consistent avalanche properties; for example 82% of samples of the 15V high-speed switch 2N2369, manufactured over a 12-year period, were capable of generating avalanche breakdown pulses with rise time of 350 ps or less, using a 90V power supply as Jim Williams writes. An avalanche transistor is a bipolar junction transistor designed for operation in the region of its collector-current/collector-to-emitter voltage characteristics beyond the collector-to-emitter breakdown voltage, called avalanche breakdown region. This region is characterized by avalanche breakdown, which is a phenomenon similar to Townsend discharge for gases, and negative differential resistance. Operation in the avalanche breakdown region is called avalanche-mode operation: it gives avalanche transistors the ability to switch very high currents with less than a nanosecond rise and fall times (transition times). Transistors not specifically designed for the purpose can have reasonably consistent avalanche properties; for example 82% of samples of the 15V high-speed switch 2N2369, manufactured over a 12-year period, were capable of generating avalanche breakdown pulses with rise time of 350 ps or less, using a 90V power supply as Jim Williams writes. The first paper dealing with avalanche transistors was Ebers & Miller (1955). The paper describes how to use alloy-junction transistors in the avalanche breakdown region in order to overcome speed and breakdown voltage limitations which affected the first models of such kind of transistor when used in earlier computer digital circuits. Therefore, the very first applications of avalanche transistors were in switching circuits and multivibrators. The introduction of the avalanche transistor served also as an application of Miller's empirical formula for the avalanche multiplication coefficient M {displaystyle M} , first introduced in the paper Miller (1955). The need for better understanding transistor behavior in the avalanche breakdown region,not only for use in avalanche mode, gave rise to an extensive research on impact ionization in semiconductors (see Kennedy & O'Brien (1966)). From the beginning of the 1960s to the first half of the 1970s, several avalanche-transistor circuits were proposed. The kind of bipolar junction transistor best suited for use in the avalanche breakdown region was studied. A complete reference, which includes also the contributions of scientists from ex-USSR and COMECON countries, is the book by Дьяконов (Dyakonov) (1973). The first application of the avalanche transistor as a linear amplifier, named Controlled Avalanche Transit Time Triode, (CATT) was described in (Eshbach, Se Puan & Tantraporn 1976). A similar device, named IMPISTOR was described more or less in the same period in the paper of Carrol & Winstanley (1974). Linear applications of this class of devices started later since there are some requirements to fulfill, as described below. The use of avalanche transistors in those applications is not mainstream since the devices require high collector to emitter voltages in order to work properly. Nowadays, there is still active research on avalanche devices (transistors or other) made of compound semiconductors, capable of switching currents of several tens of amperes even faster than 'traditional' avalanche transistors. In this section, the I C − V C E {displaystyle I_{C}-V_{CE}} static characteristic of an avalanche transistor is calculated. For the sake of simplicity, only an NPN device is considered: however, the same results are valid for PNP devices only changing signs to voltages and currents accordingly. The analysis closely follows that of William D. Roehr in (Roehr 1963).Since avalanche breakdown multiplication is present only across the collector-base junction, the first step of the calculation is to determine collector current as a sum of various component currents though the collector since only those fluxes of charge are subject to this phenomenon. Kirchhoff's current law applied to a bipolar junction transistor implies the following relation, always satisfied by the collector current I C {displaystyle I_{C}} while for the same device working in the active region, basic transistor theory gives the following relation