Why does the collector current depend linearly on the base current?
It is well known that there is a linear relationship between the BJT collector and base current (Ic = beta x Ib). It would be interesting to explain it in an intuitive way. The power of such a "philosophical" approach is that it can explain various specific implementations. The idea In the BJT, the base-emitter voltage controls the collector current in an exponential manner. So, if we directly drive the base-emitter junction by a perfect voltage source, the bare transistor can be thought as an "antilog voltage-to-current converter". If we drive the base-emitter junction by a voltage source through a resistor or by a perfect current source, we will control indirectly the base-emitter voltage... and it will control the collector current as usual. So the base-emitter junction serves here as a "log current-to-voltage converter". The conclusion is that, in this arrangement, there are two cascaded (reverse and direct) non-linear convertors. .. and the overall re...