POWER MOSFET –
CONSTRUCTION –
If you look at the structure, you could see that the gate terminal is fixed on the thin
metal layer which is insulated by a layer of Silicon Dioxide (SiO2) from the
semiconductor, and
you will be able to see two N-type semiconductors fixed in the channel region
where the drain and source terminals are placed.
The channel between the drain and source of the MOSFET is an N-type, opposite
to this, the substrate is implemented as P-type.
This helps in biasing MOSFET in both the polarities, either positive or negative.
If the gate terminal of the MOSFET isn’t biased, it will stay in the non-conductive
state, hence the MOSFET is mostly used in designing switches and logic gates.
Working Principle-
In general, the MOSFET works as a switch, the MOSFET controls the voltage and
current flow between the source and drain.
The working of the MOSFET depends on the MOS capacitor, which is the
semiconductor surface below the oxide layers between the source and drain terminal. It
can be inverted from p-type to n-type, simply by applying positive or negative gate
voltage respectively. The above image shows the block diagram of the MOSFET.
When a drain-source voltage (VDS) is connected between the drain and source, a positive
voltage is applied to the Drain, and the negative voltage is applied to the Source. Here the
PN junction at the drain is reverse biased and the PN junction at the Source is forward
biased.
At this stage, there will not be any current flow between the drain and the source.
If we apply a positive voltage (VGG) to the gate terminal, due to electrostatic attraction the
minority charge carriers (electrons) in the P substrate will start to accumulate on the gate
contact which forms a conductive bridge between the two n+ regions.
The number of free electrons accumulated at the gate contact depends on the strength of
positive voltage applied.
The higher the applied voltage greater the width of the n-channel formed due to electron
accumulation, this eventually increases the conductivity and the drain current (ID) will
start to flow between the Source and Drain.
When there is no voltage applied to the gate terminal, there will not be any current flow
apart from a small amount of current due to minority charge carriers. The minimum
voltage at which the MOSFET starts conducting is called the threshold voltage.
Operation of MOSFET in Depletion Mode:
The depletion-mode MOSFETs are usually called the “Switched ON” devices as they are
generally in the closed state when there is no bias voltage at the gate terminal. When we
increase the applied voltage to the gate in positive the channel width will be increased in
depletion mode. This will increase the drain current I D through the channel. If the applied
gate voltage is highly negative, then the channel width will be less and the MOSFET
might enter into the cutoff region.
