Electronic – BJTs max VCE voltage

bjttransistors

If I ground the base of a NPN transistor (which means no current is passing through the transistor) with a VCE limit of 60 V, can I connect a higher voltage than its rating to collector of the transistor?

Best Answer

Here's a typical commonly used BJT data sheet: -

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If I ground the base of a NPN transistor (which means no current is passing through the transistor) with a VCE limit of 60 V, can I connect a higher voltage than its rating to collector of the transistor?

If you ground the base (i.e. connect it to 0 volts) then the collector voltage maximum (repeat maximum) voltage is 60 volts (irrespective of current being passed or not). That's what a maximum rating is - it's the point-of-abuse limit. Anything above is abuse and anything closer to 0 volts is not abuse. In truth though, to obtain best reliability you shouldn't really get to within 75% of that maximum limit. And by that I mean around 45 volts. And, I don't mean an average voltage I mean an instantaneous value so, 60 volts for 1 femtosecond or half an hour is equally abusive.