The metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET, MOS-FET, or MOS FET), is by far the most common field-effect transistor in both digital and analog circuits. The MOSFET is composed of a channel of n-type or p-type semiconductor material (see article on semiconductor devices), and is accordingly called an NMOSFET or a PMOSFET (also commonly nMOSFET, pMOSFET, NMOS FET, PMOS FET, nMOS FET, pMOS FET).
The 'metal' in the name is an anachronism from early chips in which the gates were metal; modern chips use polysilicon gates. IGFET is a related, more general term meaning insulated-gate field-effect transistor, and is almost synonymous with "MOSFET", though it can refer to FETs with a gate insulator that is not oxide. Some prefer to use "IGFET" when referring to devices with polysilicon gates, but most still call them MOSFETs.
Usually the semiconductor of choice is silicon, but some chip manufacturers, most notably IBM, have begun to use a mixture of silicon and germanium () in MOSFET channels. Unfortunately, many semiconductors with better electrical properties than silicon, such as gallium arsenide, do not form good gate oxides and thus are not suitable for MOSFETs.
The gate terminal is a layer of polysilicon (polycrystalline silicon; why polysilicon is used will be explained below) placed over the channel, but separated from the channel by a thin insulating layer of what was traditionally silicon dioxide, but more advanced technologies used silicon oxynitride. When a voltage is applied between the gate and source terminals, the electric field generated penetrates through the oxide and creates a so-called "inversion channel" in the channel underneath. The inversion channel is of the same type — P-type or N-type — as the source and drain, so it provides a conduit through which current can pass. Varying the voltage between the gate and body modulates the conductivity of this layer and makes it possible to control the current flow between drain and source.
A variety of symbols are used for the MOSFET. The basic design is generally a line for the channel with the source and drain leaving it at right angles and then bending back into the same direction as the channel. Sometimes a broken line is used for enhancement mode and a solid one for depletion mode, but the awkwardness of drawing broken lines means this distinction is often ignored. Another line is drawn parallel to the channel for the gate.
The bulk connection, if shown, is shown connected to the back of the channel with an arrow indicating PMOS or NMOS. Arrows always point from P to N, so an NMOS (N-channel) has the arrow pointing in. If the bulk is connected to the source (as is generally the case with discrete devices) it is angled to meet up with the source leaving the transistor. If the bulk is not shown (as is often the case in IC design as they are generally common bulk) an inversion symbol is sometimes used to indicate PMOS.
Comparison of enhancement and depletion mode symbols, along with JFET symbols:
| JFET | MOSFET enh | MOSFET dep |
A metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) structure is obtained by depositing a layer of silicon dioxide (2) and a layer of metal (polycrystalline silicon is actually used instead of metal) on top of a semiconductor die. As the silicon dioxide is a dielectric material its structure is equivalent to a plane capacitor, with one of the electrodes replaced by a semiconductor.
When a voltage is applied across a MOS structure, it modifies the distribution of charges in the semiconductor. If we consider a P-type semiconductor (with the density of holes), a positive (see figure) tends to reduce the concentration of holes and increase the concentration of electrons. If is high enough, the concentration of negative charge carriers near the gate is more than that of positive charges, in what is known as an inversion layer.
This structure with P-type body is the basis of the N-type MOSFET, which requires the addition of a N-type source and drain regions.
A metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) is based on the modulation of charge concentration caused by a MOS capacitance. It includes two terminals (source and drain) each connected to separate highly doped regions. These regions can be either P or N type, but they must both be of the same type. The highly doped regions are typically denoted by a '+' following the type of doping (see the image at the right). These two regions are separated by a doped region of opposite type, known as the body. This region is not highly doped, denoted by the lack of a '+' sign. The active region constitutes a MOS capacitance with a third electrode, the gate, which is located above the body and insulated from all of the other regions by an oxide.
If the MOSFET is an N-Channel or nMOS FET, then the source and drain are 'N+' regions and the body is a 'P' region. When a positive gate-source voltage is applied, it creates an N-channel at the surface of the P region, just under the oxide. This channel spreads from the source to the drain and provides conductivity of the transistor. When zero or negative voltage is applied between gate and source, the channel disappears and no current can flow between the source and the drain.
If the MOSFET is an P-Channel or pMOS FET, then the source and drain are 'P+' regions and the body is a 'N' region. When a negative gate-source voltage (positive source-gate) is applied, it creates a P-channel at the surface of the N region, just under the oxide. This channel spreads from the source to the drain and provides conductivity of the transistor. When no or a positive voltage is applied between gate and body, the channel disappears and no current can flow between the source and the drain.
The source is so named because it is the source of the charge carriers (electrons for N-channel, holes for P-channel) that flow through the channel; similarly, the drain is where the charge carriers leave the channel.
,
where is the zero substrate bias, is the body effect parameter, and is the surface potential parameter.
The body can be operated as a second gate, and is sometimes referred to as the "back gate"; the body effect is sometimes called the "back-gate effect". (http://equars.com/~marco/poli/phd/node20.html)
The operation of a MOSFET can be separated into three different modes, depending on the voltages at the terminals. For an enhancement mode, n-channel MOSFET the modes are:
In 1960, Dawon Kahng and Martin Atalla at Bell Labs invented the metal oxide semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET). Theoretically different from Shockley's transistor, the MOSFET was structured by putting an insulating layer on the surface of the semiconductor and then placing a metallic gate electrode on that. It used crystalline silicon for the semiconductor and a thermally oxidized layer of silicon dioxide for the insulator. Not only did it possess such technical attractions as low cost of production and ease of integration, the silicon MOSFET serendipitously did not generate localized electron traps (interface states) at the interface between the silicon and its native oxide layer, and thus was free of the characteristic that had impeded the performance of earlier transistors. Buoyed by this stroke of good fortune, the MOSFET has achieved electronic hegemony. It is this serendipity that sustains the large-scale integrated circuits (LSIs) underlying today's information society.
The growth of digital technologies like the microprocessor has provided the motivation to advance MOSFET technology faster than any other type of silicon-based transistor. The principal reason for the success of the MOSFET was the development of digital CMOS logic, (see article on CMOS) which uses p- and n-channel MOSFETs as building blocks. The great advantage of CMOS logic is that they allow no current to flow (ideally), and thus no power to be consumed, except when the inputs to logic gates are being switched. CMOS accomplishes this by complementing every nMOSFET with a pMOSFET and connecting both gates and both drains together. A high voltage on the gates will cause the nMOSFET to conduct and the pMOSFET not to conduct and a low voltage on the gates causes the reverse. During the switching time the voltage goes from one state to another and both will conduct. This arrangement greatly reduces power consumption and heat generation. Overheating is a major concern in integrated circuits, since ever more transistors are packed into ever smaller chips.
Another advantage of MOSFETs for digital switching is that the oxide layer between the gate and the channel prevents DC current from flowing through the gate, further reducing power consumption and giving a very large input impedance. The insulating oxide between the gate and channel effectively isolates a MOSFET in one logic stage from earlier and consequent stages, which allows to drive a considerable number of MOSFET inputs from a single MOSFET output. Bipolar transistor-based logics (such as TTL) do not have such a high fanout capacity. This isolation also makes it easier for the designers to ignore to some extent loading effects between logic stages independently. That extent is defined by the operating frequency: as frequencies increase, the input impedance of the MOSFETs decreases.
The MOSFET's strengths as the workhorse transistor in most digital circuits do not translate into supremacy in analog circuits. The bipolar junction transistor (BJT) has traditionally been the analog designer's transistor of choice, due largely to its high transconductance and unique properties. Nevertheless, MOSFETs are widely relied upon for analog purposes as well. Some of the advantages of MOSFET's are that due to their positive temperature coefficient, they do not suffer from thermal runaway as BJTs do and that their linear region allows them to be used as precision resistors, which can have a much higher controlled resistance than BJT's. Also, they can be formed into capacitors and specialized circuits allow op-amps made from them to appear as inductors, therby allowing all of the normal analog devices, except for diodes (which can be made smaller than a MOSFET anyway), to be built entirely out of MOSFET's. This allows for complete analog circuits to be made on a silicon chip in a much smaller space. Some IC's combine analog and digital MOSFET circuitry on a single chip, making the needed board space even smaller. This creates a need to isolate the analog circuits from the digital circuits on a chip level, leading to the use of isolation rings and Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI). The main advantage of BJT's vs MOSFET's in the analog design process is the ability of BJT's to handle a larger current in a smaller space. Fabrication processes exist that incorporate BJTs and MOSFETs into a single device, these mixed-transistor devices are called Bi-FET's (Bipolar-FET's) if they contain just one BJT-FET and BiCMOS (bipolar-CMOS) if they contain complementary BJT-FET's. This device provides for the advantages of both the insulated gate and the higher current density.
The BJT also has some advantages over the MOSFET in certain digital circuits. BJT's are currently better for at least 2 digital jobs. The first is in high speed switching because they don't have the "larger" capacitance from the gate, which when multiplied by the resistance of the channel gives the intrinsic time constant of the process. The intrinsic time constant places a limit on the speed a MOSFET can operate at because higher frequency signals are filtered out. Widening the channel reduces the resistance of the channel, but increases the capacitance by the exact same amount. Reducing the width of the channel increases the resistance, but reduces the capacitance by the same amount. R*C=Tc1, 0.5R*2C=Tc1, 2R*0.5C=Tc1. There is no way to minimize the intrinsic time constant for a certain process. Different processes using different channel lengths, channel heights, gate thicknesses and materials will have different intrinsic time constants. You can skip most of this problem with a BJT because it doesn't have a gate. The second job stems from the first. When driving many other gates, called fanning out, the resistance of the MOSFET is in series with the gate capacitance's of the other FETs, creating a secondary time constant. Delay circuits use this fact to create a set signal delay by using a small CMOS device to send a signal to many other, many times larger CMOS devices. The secondary time constant can be minimized by increasing the driving FET's channel width to decrease its resistance and decreasing the channel width of the FET's being driven, decreasing their capacitance. This does have a drawback because it increases the capacitance of the driving FET and increases the resistance of the FET's being driven, but usually those drawbacks are a minimal problem when compared to the timing problem. BJT's are better to drive the other gates because they can output more current than MOSFET's, allowing for the FET's being driven to charge faster. Many chips will employ MOSFET inputs and BiCMOS (see above paragraph) outputs.
Over the past decades, the MOSFET has continually been scaled down in size; typical MOSFET channel lengths were once several micrometres, but modern integrated circuits are incorporating MOSFETs with channel lengths of less than a tenth of a micrometre. Indeed Intel will begin production of a process featuring a 65 nm feature size (with the channel being even shorter) in early 2006. Until the late 1990s, this size reduction resulted in great improvement to MOSFET operation with no deleterious consequences. Historically, the difficulties with decreasing the size of the MOSFET have been associated with the semiconductor device fabrication process.
Smaller MOSFETs are desirable for three reasons. First, smaller MOSFETs allow more current to pass. Conceptually, MOSFETs are like resistors in the on-state, and shorter resistors have less resistance. Second, smaller MOSFETs have smaller gates, and thus lower gate capacitance. These first two factors contribute to lower switching times, and thus higher processing speeds. A third reason for MOSFET scaling is reduced area, leading to reduced cost. Smaller MOSFETs can be packed more densely, resulting in either smaller chips or chips with more computing power in the same area. Because the cost of fabricating a semiconductor wafer is relatively fixed, the cost of the individual integrated circuits is mainly related to the number of chips that can be produced per wafer. Hence, smaller ICs allow more chips per wafer, reducing the price per chip.
Power MOSFETs are at risk of thermal runaway. As their on-state resistance rises with temperature, the power loss on the junction rises correspondingly, generating further heat. When the heatsink is not able to keep the temperature low enough, the junction temperature may quickly and uncontrollably rise, resulting in destruction of the device.
Insulators (referred to as high-k dielectrics) that have a larger dielectric constant than silicon dioxide, such as group IVb metal silicates e.g. hafnium and zirconium silicates and oxides, are now being researched to reduce the gate leakage. Increasing the dielectric constant of the gate oxide material allows a thicker layer while maintaining a high capacitance. The higher thickness reduces the tunneling current between the gate and the channel. An important consideration is the barrier height of the new gate oxide; the difference in conduction band energy between the semiconductor and the oxide (and the corresponding difference in valence band energy) will also affect the leakage current level. For the traditional gate oxide, silicon dioxide, the former barrier is approximately 8 eV. For many alternative dielectrics the value is significantly lower, somewhat negating the advantage of higher dielectric constant.
The primary criterion for the gate material is that it is a good conductor. Highly-doped polycrystalline silicon is an acceptable, but certainly not ideal conductor, and it also suffers from some more technical deficiencies in its role as the standard gate material. Nevertheless, there are several reasons favoring use of polysilicon as a gate material:
While polysilicon gates have been the defacto standard for the last twenty years, they do have some disadvantages, which could lead to their replacement by metal gates or other materials in the future. These disadvantages include:
Power MOSFETs have a different structure than the one presented above. As with all power devices, the structure is vertical and not planar. Using a vertical structure, it is possible for the transistor to sustain both high blocking voltage and high current. The voltage rating of the transistor is a function of the doping and thickness of the N epitaxial layer (see cross section), while the current rating is a function of the channel width (the wider the channel, the higher the current). In a planar structure, the current and breakdown voltage ratings are both function of the channel dimensions (respectively width and length of the channel), resulting in inefficient use of the "silicon estate". With the vertical structure, the component area is roughly proportional to the current it can sustain, and the component thickness (actually the N-epitaxial layer thickness) is proportional to the breakdown voltage.
It is worth noting that power MOSFETs with lateral structure exist. They are mainly used in high-end audio amplifiers. Their advantage is a better behaviour in the saturated region (corresponding to the linear region of a bipolar transistor) than the vertical MOSFETs. Vertical MOSFETs are designed for switching applications, so they are only used in On or Off states.
In the case of a P-MOS, the body is connected to Vdd and the gate is brought to a lower potential to turn the switch on. The P-MOS switch passes all voltages higher than (Vgate+Vtp), measured with respect to the body.
A P-MOS switch will have three times the resistance of an N-MOS device of equal dimensions because electrons have three times the mobility of holes in silicon.
The only limits for this switch are the gate-source, gate-drain and source-drain voltage limits for both FETs. Also, the P-MOS is typically 3 times the width of the N-MOS so the switch will be balanced.
Tri-state circuitry sometimes incorporates a CMOS MOSFET switch on its output to provide for a low ohmic, full range output when on and a high ohmic, mid level signal when off.
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