Pulse and Digital Circuits

1.4 DEVICES, CHARACTERISTICS AND APPLICATIONS

Devices such as diodes and bipolar junction transistors (BJTs) (generally called transistors), field-effect transistors (FETs), metal oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors (MOSFETs) and complementary MOS (CMOS) devices are used both for linear and non-linear and switching applications. A different class of devices, called relaxation devices, such as tunnel diodes, unijunction transistors (UJT), and p–n–p–n diodes are also used in switching applications. The characteristics and applications of some of these devices are briefly discussed here.

1.4.1 Diodes

A diode is a two-terminal device. Diodes can be of different types—a p–n junction diode, commonly known as a semiconductor diode; a Zener ...