Lecture 7

Transistors
So far all we have covered in the class are two terminal devices, except for the amplifier. But in the case of the amplifier, we never looked at the circuit level operation of the device, just simple models of them. If we want to actually amplify something, we need a way to have a separated input and output.
If the magnitude of the output is to be larger than the input, they must have different Kirchoff loops to follow. You cant have two voltages/currents coming out of the same lead. Two terminal devices are unable to put out a value larger than is out in (they are passive devices, with no power supply)

Just a fancy switch

We need a three terminal device
A voltage, or current is applied across two terminals The current out of the third terminal is dictated by that applied signal The output can (and most times will) be greater than the input signal.

This class of devices is known as the transistor We will study two kinds:
MOSFETs BJTs

In this chapter we will look at the MOSFET

The MOSFET
MOSFET stands for Metal Oxide Field Effect Transistor This is simply a description of the physical layout of the device
There is a metal gate that is separated from the main body of the semiconductor by an insulator The semiconductor has two terminals, located on either side of the gate. They are called the Source (S) and Drain (D) Underneath the gate and between the source and drain is the channel

The field effect part of the name refers to the fact that an electric field is used to control the conductivity of the channel.

Note: MOSFET actually refers to field effect devices that are built with silicon because oxides on other semiconductors are often hard to grow. But the term MOSFET has now taken on the more general meaning of any field effect transistor that has an insulated gate (IGFET)

Enhancement Mode
Here we are looking at an enhancement mode n-channel MOSFET
The channel and the substrate that supports the device are composed of p-type silicon The source and drain are heavily doped n-type (labeled as n+) The gate is deposited on top of an oxide layer (typically 2-50 nm thick) A fourth terminal is connected to the substrate. This is called the body terminal and is tied to one of the other terminals in actual operation (well cover this later)

You can generally see how it will work:

A bias is applied to the gate This somehow affects the channel underneath it The channel either becomes more or less conductive, thus altering the current sent through the source to the drain.

The Winner by a Knockout!

In the next chapter we will study another kind of transistor called the Bipolar Junction Transistor (BJT). But to spoil the ending, the MOSFET ends up the winner in sheer magnitude of them made each year: (Hint: There are more transistors than there are ants in the world) Here is what Gordon Moore has to say about this:
We make on the order of 1017 transistors. That's a 1 followed by seventeen 0s [100,000,000,000,000,000]. This is a number that's hard to comprehend. One of the things that I like to compare it to is the estimate of the number of ants on earth made by Professor E.O. Wilson of Harvard[. That estimate] is about 1016 to 1017. So we make about one transistor for every ant on earth these daysevery year. http://www.ieee-virtual-museum.org/scripts/4568147.php What component in a PC has the most transistors?

Allegations of doping...
Why did the MOSFET win? There are a few reasons and they are good to know in advance so you can look for them in our review.
They are easy to make and cheap: BJTs as you will learn have all their important structure buried inside the wafer. MOSFETs most important part, the channel, is right at the surface (almost). They draw very little power because the gate is insulated: This is of course important for mobile applications. They can be made smaller: Thus more can fit on a chip, allowing more powerful functions. They come in four flavors, which allows for a great deal of versatility:
n-channel enhancement mode: positive gate voltages lead to increased conductivity n-channel depletion mode: negative gate voltages lead to decreased conductivity p-channel enhancement mode: negative gate voltages lead to increased conductivity p-channel depletion mode: positive gate voltages lead to decreased conductivity

Operation
With no bias applied, we can see that from source to drain there are two back to back p-n junctions (diodes). This means we can expect to see very high resistance, typically around 1012 . Now we apply a positive voltage (remember we are still working with the n-channel MOSFET) between the source and gate
The majority holes will be pushed away from the region of the channel near the gate. At the same time, electrons from the source and drain will also be pulled into this region. At a sufficiently high voltage this region will effectively become n-type, thus bridging the source and drain, allowing for current to flow.

This layer of n-type within the channel is known as an inversion layer The voltage needed to create this inversion layer is the threshold voltage Vt (typically lies within 0.5 to 1V) For a p-channel enhancement mode MOSFET, the threshold voltage will be negative (to induce a p-type region in the channel).

Operation II
If we now apply a small voltage vDS across the source and drain, we would expect current to flow. That current is carried by the free electrons in the inversion layer. First lets consider when vDS is small, around 50 mV or so.
At the threshold voltage, there will be very few electrons and therefore little current will flow. The conductivity of the channel will be proportional to the excess gate voltage (vGS-Vt).

Note that almost no current (far too little to measure) flows from the gate. Thus we expend no power at the input to get a current (and thus power) gain at the output.

Higher Voltage Operation

If we increase the source drain voltage, the operation of the device changes to a new form.
The finite resistance of the channel leads to a voltage drop across it. This means that the voltage difference between the gate and channel changes along the path from source to drain, being the largest near the source. The inversion layer will then be the thickest near the source.

This variation in the thickness of the inversion layer leads to an increase in the channel resistance. Called Triode operation.

Saturation
As vDS increases, the inversion layer becomes more tapered, thus further increasing the resistance. Finally at some point, the inversion layer has a thickness of zero at the drain.
This is called pinch off Then, any additional voltage between the source and drain will not affect the channel shape so the resistance stays fixed. Operation at and above this voltage is referred to as saturation.

The saturation voltage vDsat varies with gate bias.

vDsat = vGS Vt
http://www-g.eng.cam.ac.uk/mmg/teaching/linearcircuits/mosfet.html