Location of 1/f noise sources in BJT's and HBJT's—I. theory

The most general case of1/fnoise in transistors can be described by three independent noise current generators: ibebetween base and emitter, ibcbetween base and collector, and iecbetween emitter and collector. By short-circuiting the base and the collector to ground and comparing the base and collector noise spectraS_{IB}(f)andS_{IC}(f)for the case of zero feedback from the emitter with the base and collector noise spectraS'_{IB}(f)andS'_{IC}(f)for the case of strong feedback from the emitter, one can evaluate the relative strength of the three noise sources. By measuring the current dependence ofS_{IB}(f),S_{IC}(f),S'_{IB}(f), andS'_{IC}(f), one can assign physical processes to the current generators ibc, ibe, and iec. It is the aim of this paper to demonstrate theoretically a simple method for locating1/fnoise sources in BJT's and HBJT's by comparing the base and collector1/fnoise for the cases without and with strong emitter feedback. In later papers we shall demonstrate experimentally how this method is applied to practical situations.