MOS Transistors

Yannis Tsividis
Intuitive Overview
of the MOS Transistor
These slides are based on Y. Tsividis and C.
McAndrew, Operation and Modeling of the
MOS Transistor, Copyright Oxford University
Press, 2011. They are meant to be part of a
lecture, and may be incomplete or may not even
make sense without the accompanying
narration.
Based on Tsividis/McAndrew; Copyright Oxford University Press, 2011 2
=

Can be very small; e.g., 100 nm on a side.
Simplified view:




MOS: Metal-Oxide-Seminconductor
FET: Field-Effect Transistor
MOSFET
Based on Tsividis/McAndrew; Copyright Oxford University Press, 2011 3
Inversion:
Weak
Moderate
Strong
The body is p-type, and normally contains
positive mobile charges (holes).

But the positive gate charges attract negatively
charged electrons in the channel.

We say that inversion has taken place there.

Channel
Based on Tsividis/McAndrew; Copyright Oxford University Press, 2011 4
Fluid-dynamical analog
Source tank Drain tank Channel

GS

GS

GS

GS

DS1

DS2

Strong inversion:

Based on Tsividis/McAndrew; Copyright Oxford University Press, 2011 5
Fluid-dynamical analog, contd
Weak inversion:

GS1

Moderate inversion:

GS3

Based on Tsividis/McAndrew; Copyright Oxford University Press, 2011 6