Q on Transistor

Yup. If you jam in 1/10 as much base current as the load current, that would be called a "forced beta" of 10.

But more base current doesn't always lead to lower saturation voltage. For either the normal or inverted setup, there's some base current that makes for the lowest Vce. A forced beta of 10 should be pretty good, though.

John

Yes. That beta spec applies only at some collector to emitter minimum voltage and some maximum collector current. If the minimum collector voltage is not met, the hfe falls dramatically, since it is reverse bias across the collector to base junction that sweeps the charge carriers injected into the base region by the emitter (perhaps I should say, emitted by the emitter) efficiently to the collector (the reverse bias collects those charges out of the reverse biased layer of the base region). The base is called what it is because originally it was the physical object that emitters and collectors were diffused into from opposite sides.

Once the base voltage rises above the collector voltage, the base to collector junction becomes forward biased, and base current diverts directly to the collector (in addition to any feeble emitter charge collection taking place). At some value of base collector forward bias, the base to collector current must exceed the base to emitter forward bias current, since there is no load resistor limiting this current in the collector path. At that point, the hfe must be less than 1.