which characteristics of the MOSFET. Okay.

And we had said that there

are these different regions of operation. We said that there is this IDS,
which is mu COX W over L into VGS minus VT times VDS minus VDS
square by 2. And we call this the linear mode of operation. which means
that your vds is less than vgs minus VT. And when i say deep linear,
deep linear mode of operation, it means that the vds is very small it's
it's uh much smaller than vgs minus VT. Okay. And this implies that my
mu cox w over L. And if you look at these two terms, only this term
dominates. and this is approximately uh just that. okay so this is my ids
and then we had gone on to say that so all this is linear operation.
Then we had gone on to say that uh you also have a condition where
your vds could be greater than or equal to vgs minus VT. And in that
case, your ids is mu c of w over l by 2 into vgs minus vtd whole squared.
And we made an additional improvement to this model by adding
something called as the channel length modulation parameter. So this
is the channel length modulation. So just to give you, so this channel
length modulation is clearly dependent on the current and so on and so
forth. But it is also dependent on the channel length itself, the absolute
value of the channel length. So you can think of it and i'll give you some
intuition to that later.
Okay, we will try to understand what this means for analog circuits. And
I'll give you some intuition into that later. But this is where we are. And I
told you to pay close attention to the characteristics of the MOSFET. So I
told you that, you know, we have the transfer characteristics. Okay,
which is uh ids versus vgs and the output characteristics uh which is id
s versus vds and the transfer characteristics in our model so far. You
know nothing happens till vt all right there is no current. It's not really
true, but this is our model for now and in linear mode you'll have
something you know very close to this. And then as you enter saturation
mode uh you you know you end up with something like this.
Sorry, let me just redraw this. so for linear mode, you'll have something
like this, and then maybe be something like this, and then you'll have
something like this, then you'll have something like this, and so on so
forth, okay? So you can all plot it, so you'll understand what i mean. All
right, then for the output characteristics, you'll have, you know, you'll
have the characteristics looking like this, wherein up till here, you have
linear operation. And beyond that, you have your saturation mode. And
you can see this very gentle rise with the drain to source voltage. All
right. So now what we're going to do in today's class is let us try and
identify something called as the uh small signal parameters of the
mosfet okay and then we will then go back to device physics and very
quickly see the things that will affect all this.
And then we will formally start looking at circuits. Okay, now what do
you mean by this small signal parameters? Right now, what does that
imply? So generally you will see that in your analog circuits, the way,
what we are interested in looking at is uh all right, you have, you first
set all your circuits. You give it a certain dc bias, okay You give it a
certain dc voltage. So let's say this is the supply voltage. This is ground.
And with respect to ground, you give all of them some dc voltage. So
this could be something like five volts. And then let's say i've got some
voltage here, which is some VB, which could be, let's say, three volts.
And, you know, there is some resistance here, which is, say, one kilo
ohm and so on so forth.
You give DC voltages to all this. Now, then when I, the practical
application demands that, okay, there is some signal that, you know, is
being generated by a sensor. It could be a microphone. It could be a
piezoelectric. It really doesn't matter. But you have some signal which
has got, which is very small. And generally the problem that you're
trying to solve is you're trying to improve that signal in some way. And
what do you mean by improve? it means to clean out noise. It means to
amplify the signal and we will spend a lot of time and effort into doing
this cleaning out noise and amplifying the signal irrespective of the
frequency. And at the same time, your entire circuit must be stable.
So this is essentially the job of your analog design. And after this, what
happens is the signal goes. Once you have made a very clean signal,
With the present-day technology, nobody really keeps it in an analog
domain. You want to quickly digitize the signal and then make it more
robust and send it out. But irrespective of what you want to do in the
digital domain, you always have this front-end interface, which has to
be analog, where the sensors come in, and you want to sense this very
analog world, and you need this interface. That is, a very small portion
of your entire chip, but very important. If you get these things wrong,
then everything else beyond that doesn't matter. You're reading out
wrong signals, right?
Okay, so uh what so the actual signal itself is basically just a little
ripple. And what do you mean by the little ripple? It is essentially this,
right? You have a dc bias point, let's say of three volts. And let's say your
actual signal is coming in something like this, right? so what that means
is this signal might be pushing this voltage to 3.1 2.9 and so on so forth.
okay so this is my small signal. So this is what i refer to as my small
signal and it could be the signal shape could be anything, but all of you
can always decompose this into its fourier components. So it is all right
to say that it is a bunch of sinusoids. Uh, which have got, uh, you know,
so and so frequency components in it.
okay so for all our general analysis we will simply assume that our
signal is something like this and you can then later on add in as many
frequency components as you want. okay so this is my small signal. So
here we will make a very big difference when i say. DC analysis or dc uh
signals what i mean is this. These are all time invariant. I'm talking
about the three volt here. And when I say what is the small signal, I'm
actually referring to this little ripple that is riding on top of that three
volt. So this plus the small signal will give me my actual signal C90
gate. So you have a DC signal and you have an AC or small signal.
The small signal and AC analysis and AC signal are all the same things.
And so when I do a small signal analysis, I want to only see the impact
of this on my circuit behavior. So what does that mean from the point of
view of the transfer characteristics? So let us say you have a MOSFET.
You have a MOSFET and let us say you have some VDS that is set up
here and you have some VGS that is set up here. and because of all
these dc signals you have some ids which is dictated by those two uh
equations right mu cox w over l into vgs minus vt minus vds by 2 into
vds and mu cox w over l into vgs minus vt whole squared into 1 plus
lambda vds so depending on what the dc value here is and the dc value
here is you can decide which
of these currents is actually flowing. So all this is the dc condition. So
now let us say, so which means that in my transfer and output
characteristics i am operating at some point. Okay. So let us say i'm
operating here. So this is my vgs and that's my ids and the vds is
whatever it is there. And in my output characteristics, let me call this
vds not. Okay. And this is some VGS node. So this is my VGS node. And
in my output characteristics, I have something like this. And let us say
I'm sitting somewhere. You know, there is some point where I'm
operating my transistor. And this is at VGS node. So that is the curve
that I have used. All right.
So now, let us say i give a small signal. I will add on a small signal at
the drain node. Okay, so this is my drain. My source is grounded. This is
my gate and i don't do anything to VGS. But at the drain node, I add a
small signal. So this is my vds and i add this little signal over here. So
what does that mean? it means that on your output characteristics, in
your output characteristics, you have now not got a constant VDSO, but
you've got this little ripple. Okay, so which is your small signal joining in.
Which means that if you look at the current, the current is going to
fluctuate. It's going to fluctuate by about this amount. So a small signal
ripple there is going to cause a ripple in the current.
And similarly what does that how do you imagine this in your transfer
characteristics? If there is a small signal variation in VDS, see here you
have your family of curves, right? This is for uh for the various different
VDS. Now this fluctuation in vds implies that my current uh my vgs is
constant. My VGS is always constant. Okay, so your current is actually
fluctuating between these two curves. So you're actually seeing
something like that. That is what a fluctuation in VDS implies. Okay. And
the way we represent a small signal is for DC values, I will always use
capital symbols. I will always use capital VGS. The subscripts will be
capital. This letter will be capital. Everything is capitalized. But for small
signal, I always use small alphabets.
Okay. Now, there are many combinations. We will not worry. We will just
keep things simple and we will just use these two. There is one form in
which you can represent both together, both added and all that. That will
simply complicate too many notations for using on a chalkboard. So, we
will just stay with these two notations. When you see capital, it means
DC voltages. When you see small alphabets, you mean it implies your
small signal. So, this capital VDS, capital VGS had a DC current IDS
flowing. And this small signal has led to a ripple in your IDS also. This is
the small signal ripple in IDS. Now, similarly, you could also change, you
can now apply the small signal to the gate.
You can keep the drain voltage constant. You can keep VDSO constant.
And on top of VGSO, you can have a small signal that is rippling off. So,
let us call this one small vgs. And what is the ripple here? The small vds
is 0. There is no ripple on the DC side. And this leads to a current which
is ids plus small ids. And how do we imagine that? So, here is my
transfer characteristics. So, this is at some vds 0. And this is the VGS
I'm operating at. And a small ripple in the VGS, which means this width
is my small VGS, is now going to lead to a small fluctuation in my
current ideas. And in the output characteristics, the way I can imagine it
is I have my output characteristics.
This is for a family of curves. So this is for a different VGS. And I'm
operating at some VDSO, which I have not changed. And the fluctuation
in VGS implies that my current is rippling because of this fluctuation. So
this is my IDS, right? So you could have small signal variations in both
the drain to source voltage as well as the gauge to source voltage. It
could be this and not that, that and not this, or it could be both, okay? So
how do we handle all that? It's not always going to be easy to do this in
a graphical manner. So we need to find a algebraic or a functional
method to treat all these possibilities. So any questions here? Is this
clear?
Do you all understand what you mean by small signal? So if you all have
any questions, do raise your hands, please. okay so it looks everything
looks like everything is good. So now we will make some definitions.
okay and then i'll tell you why we need to do all this. Why we need to
define something as small signal and what is meant by small is how do
you quantify what is small? Let's have a deeper understanding of those
things. So the first thing is, let me make some definitions. okay so here.
Imagine your transistor. uh as a device like this, right? This is d s and
this is my gate. Now let us say i have applied a small signal. Drain to
source fluctuation and there is a dc voltage as well.
okay so if i apply a small signal drain to source fluctuation and apply a
dc voltage. Then I have my output characteristics looking like this. and i
told you, as i told you, that i have a small ripple in my vds here. So, if i
have to define a term, okay, now before before i do that, okay, so let me
let me tell you why you need small signals. Why are we interested in uh
you know, looking at small signal behavior? Why are we so specific
about this word small? The reason why we want to define something to
be small is ultimately i want to linearize my circuit, you know. clearly
my transistor is a non-linear device. And the moment I say, okay, VGS is
small or VDS is small, what I am going to assume later is that this
variation of this current, right, clearly mathematically the slope at each
point is different, okay.
The slope at each and every point on this curve is different because it is
a non-linear characteristic. It is a a square law or whatever it is, but it's
in saturation. So I want to linearize it. Okay. And why do i want to
linearize it? I want to imagine that the slope in this little segment or in
the region where my vgs is changing, that slope is constant and it is
simply defined by my dc value. I will use, I will take my dc value will
calculate what the slope is in and around the DC value. I will take one
average slope around that point and I want to keep that average slope
constant. In other words, I want to break up this curve into many little
line segments.
Okay. And why do I want to do all this linearization? Because if I can do
linearization, all the tools of my linear control system theory become
available to me. Okay. And that's a very powerful tool set. So all the
interesting ideas that you have, Bode plots, Nyquist stability, actually
writing a transfer function, analyzing all the techniques to analyze a
transfer function, to look at stability, feedback, et cetera, all that
becomes open for me. Provided I have a linear system. And clearly I
have a nonlinear device here. So I'm going to imagine that that all the
signals that I'm going to amplify are very small, and they are so small
that they actually fit within one of these line segments. I can always
change the size of the line segment at the cost of accuracy, but if I make
these signals really small, then my assumption that the slope is a
constant becomes better and better.
It's more valid as opposed to me making these very large segments and
saying that the slope is constant even if I have large swings in VGS. So
that's the idea behind small signal. And one of the most powerful tools
of control system theory that we use right off the bat is something
called a superposition. Essentially, what that means is if you have a
linear system, and let us say you have two inputs, V1 and V2, and you
want to find the output, then what you could do is you just find the
output for V1 alone, you find, then you find the output for v2 applied
alone, and then you simply sum these two outputs and you should get
the, uh, you should get the output for when both these signals are
applied.
Okay. So this is something called a superposition and we will use that
right away. So whenever i see a circuit, now, what did i tell you that in
my circuit, I'm going to have vds and then maybe i might have a small
signal added and let's say for now, my, vgs is a constant. So the moment
i see this circuit, I can now use superposition and i can split the circuit
into two parts. I can say that, okay, I will analyze the circuit as such. I
will say that i will keep all the dc components in one circuit where i will
do a dc analysis. And then i will keep an ac circuit where i do only small
signal analysis. So wherever there is small signal,
I will write that up. And wherever there is no small signal, it's all
grounded. So you see there is no small signal here. So essentially all
DC nodes will all be grounded. And here this is only for DC analysis. So I
will split my circuit into these two parts. And then I will do all the
correct DC biasing, etc., everything using this circuit without worrying
about the small signal that is coming in. and then after i know that my
circuit is biased well and everything is in correct order, I will forget
about the dc part and i will only go ahead and do small signal analysis
using a circuit like this. And I will obtain all my results, my gain, my
noise, etc.
using a circuit like this so therefore uh i do not know how many of you
would have actually thought about this or understood this clearly, but
Therefore, we say that we want to do two kinds of analysis on a circuit.
One is the DC analysis, wherein we will ignore all these little small
signal components and only keep the DC bias. And after we have done
this, we will then do a small signal analysis, wherein we will ground all
DC nodes. We will null all DC nodes. And we will then do a small signal
analysis where, you know, all these DC points are all nulled and I only
have small signals in place. Now, what do you mean by nulling a
source? It means that when I say, when I use the term null a source, it
means that if it is a voltage source, I will ground it.
And if it is a current source, I will open it. Okay, so it does not exist. So,
there is no current flowing. So, there is zero current flowing in. and
there is zero voltage being applied. So that is what nulling a source
means. But it's just a technical term that people use. All right. So this is
the way we are going to handle circuits. And you are able to do this uh
because of superposition all right uh otherwise what will happen is if
this signal becomes too big and you're violating, you're clearly non-
linear then you cannot say that while doing this analysis, I can ignore
what's happening here because clearly the dc voltages are being
changed. Right? So, so, uh, we will only say small signal okay now uh
despite the signals being large enough, we will continue using small
signal analysis, uh, keeping in mind that as the signals grow larger and
larger, our assumption of small signal analysis gets weaker and
weaker.
All right. So now if this is the case, What we will do now is to look at the
transistor a little differently. We will say, okay, here you have VDSO plus
my small signal VDS being applied. And what I want to do is first I will
do a DC analysis, which means my DC equivalent circuit is something
like this. It's something like this, wherein I have an IDS that is flowing.
And I can calculate these ideas because I know the equations for this.
And then I will only do a small signal analysis on the circuit where I will
now ground my gate node. When I ground it, it does not mean that in my
actual circuit there is no DC voltage. The transistor is still on.
It is still above threshold and so on because I am just not looking at the
DC part. I am only looking at the AC part. The transistor is still on and so
on. But I will only look at the VDS being applied. and i will only look at
the small signal change in ids i will not worry about this large current
flow in reality in this circuit even though i'm doing this analysis
remember there is a large vds here there is a vgs that is greater than vt
here there is a channel the mosfet is biased in above threshold and i
have a large dc current flowing but in this circuit i'm only going to look
at the ripples in the vds the ripples and ids ripples in vgs which is none
zero and uh this is going to be my ac circuit for analysis for small signal
analysis okay is this is this clear any any questions here so this
understanding is key all right any any questions here what do you mean
by small signal mean quantitatively uh how small it is quantitatively?
How small? okay so this is a this what The other way of framing this
question is, how much error are you willing to accept? So that's
essentially the question you're asking. Theoretically speaking, for a
mathematician, nothing is small enough. It is a nonlinear system. If you
want zero error, don't make the assumption of small signal analysis.
You're completely wrong if you do it. If you want zero error, not possible
at all.
You handle this as a nonlinear device. You use nonlinear systems
theory. Now, we as engineers do not want to do that. Nonlinear systems
theory is mature enough, but it is a bit more complex. You need to
understand, say, for stability, you need to look at Lyapunov stability. And
it's a very different treatment. And I cannot do, my toolkit is not that
easy and powerful. It's not easy. Let me put it that way. So I want to
linearize it. Now, if you then come back and say, okay, it is not zero
error. I'm willing to live with some amount of error, provided I can do
quick computation. Then the question now becomes, okay, how much of
error are you willing to live with? Okay, then you come back to me with
a number saying that, okay, I'm willing to live with that much of error.
And then you decide on what is really small for you. Okay, so that is the
other way of framing the question. Okay, and so in this course, we will
not really quantify, you know, what is our error limit, right? Okay, the
way we handle, or in fact, anybody handles analog circuits is by taking
all this Assumption of how small your signal is into a concept called as
non-linearity So when your signal, when you're violating When you're
sort of sort of Happily leaning over your small signal Assumption that
everything is still a linear system, you will start seeing the signal distort
in the sense uh the moment i so in a linear system. If I apply a sinusoid
input in the output will also be a sinusoid okay but theoretically
speaking, when i build amplifiers or small signal circuits with my
MOSFETs, when I put a small signal sinusoid in.
Mathematically, an output is never a sinusoid. There is always. that it is
all it's a non-linear system. There is always going to be some distortion.
It is always non-linear and then you look at the frequency components
of this non-linear thing, right? So let us say this sinusoid had uh all the
power coming in at some frequency. And this one is going to have some
power, a lot of the power of that frequency, but you're going to start
having some harmonics or whatever. Now, the question is, okay, how
much are you willing to live with? if you start making this larger and
larger if you start making this larger and larger your non-linearity will
start increasing on itself okay and you will start having more and more
components uh that do not belong to this uh starting to appear, simply
because of distortion you will have non-linearity you might start seeing
uh you know, depending on your bias or whatever, you will start seeing
signals that look clearly non-semisolid.
Whereas as you start approaching, as you start making this amplitude
smaller and smaller, it is more livable. This will be more or less like a
sign. Okay. So the question is how much of non-linearity are you willing
to live with? And is this good enough for your analysis? Okay. So we will
quantify this aspect and then it is up to the engineer to make that
decision on whether it is doable or not doable. Right. So that is the
answer to how small is small signal. All right. So now let's start
defining something. Now let us say I want to, I give you a transistor and
I put this transistor in a black box. I fix a VGSO. I have some VGSO plus
small signal and then this is grounded.
And I put this whole thing in a black box such that you don't have any
access to this terminal. You only have access to these two terminals,
okay? So what you're seeing is basically just this black box with two
terminals. And let us look, so this has some VDSO and ground, and then
plus this black box with a small VDS and ground, okay? So let us ignore
this. Let us say that the MOSFET is all properly biased. I'm not really
concerned about all that. And I only want to look at this little circuit
here. So now if I have to tell you that there is a black box and you have
some, you applied some small signal VDS, you've got some ripple here
and you're getting some ripple in current.
And I want to know what is this ratio? What would your answer be?
What am I measuring? Sir, small signal resistance. Resistance. Okay. So
I'm measuring the resistance and it is the small signal resistance. So
I'm not measuring the resistance of the MOSFET as such. I'm not
measuring VDS by IDS. No, it is not a linear device. So it's hard to define
a linear component called resistor. What I'm measuring instead is a
small signal. Or in other words, what I'm measuring is tau VDS by IDS.
Now, I guess a small variation in VDS by now ideas. And this is
something called as a small signal resistance of the MOSFET. And we
will call it the output resistance output impedance of the MOSFET. So,
this definition VDS by ideas, which is now VDS by now ideas is the
output impedance of the MOSFET.
okay so next, suppose i have a small signal variation before we go
there. okay so so let's uh let's uh see how good your understanding is.
So suppose my mosfet is in linear bias. Can somebody calculate and tell
me what is the output impedance of the mosfet or what is the small
signal resistance of this MOSFET? Can you take a pen and paper
calculate it and read it out to me? So, it is Dow VDS by Dow IDS. One
upon ID lambda. Sorry, your voice is very faint. One upon. ID lambda. ID
is bias current and lambda is the modulation. No, it is a linear bias.
Channel length modulation and linear. It is a linear mode operation. Yes,
sir. One upon mu n COX WRL into VGS minus VDS minus VT.
Okay. Tell me again, please. One upon mu n COX WRL. Mu COX WRL. Into
VGS minus VT minus VDS. Minus VDS. Okay. So, let us say it is in deep
linear bias. Then what will happen is you will not... uh you will not have
that vds term because that vds would have been here and you take a
derivative and it goes away so in deep linear bias this is the small
signal resistance okay but otherwise you're right so otherwise what you
have is ids is mu cox w over l into vgs minus vt into vds minus vds
square by 2 and if you take dow ids by dow vds you have mu cox w over
l into vgs minus vt minus VDS. And the inverse of that is 1 by mu cox w
over l into vgs minus vt minus VDS.
And in deep linear, when my vds is much less than vgs minus VT, you
can approximate this to 1 by mu cox w over l into vgs minus VT. Okay, so
this is correct. All right. So now let's come to saturation region.
Saturation. So let's say i bias my mosfet in saturation and i'm going to
tell you ignore channel length modulation. There is no channel length
modulation. So now can somebody tell me what is the small signal
output impedance? Infinite resistance. Absolutely. Okay. It's infinite. Why
is it infinite? Because let's think about it like this. So you have you have
with no channel length modulation, you're going to have an absolutely
flat i think here so this is my IDS, this is my VDS, and no matter how
much i swing my VDS, whatever the small sign this ids is going to be
zero.
This current is not going to change at all, it is DC. Okay, so this is infinite.
Okay, so your VDS, dow VDS by dow IDS, is infinite when it's in
saturation without channel modulation. And. Look at this in linear mode.
I have a value this of this. My small signal, my small signal output
impedance. In linear mode is 1 by mu cox w over l into vgs minus VT.
Deep linear mode okay And in saturation, it is infinite. All your analog
circuits lies in this. This is the reason why you do any circuit design
technique. So keep this in mind. In saturation, the output impedance of a
MOSFET is infinite. And in linear, my output impedance of the MOSFET is
finite and it is equal to this.
So if I am in linear mode and if I want to reduce my resistance, what will
you do? You will try to increase mu, but that's not in your hands. You will
try to increase COX. Again, the foundry will decide this. L, you will try to
increase W and minimize L, but there is only a minimum feature size
determined by the foundry. But W is in your hands. So this is one
weapon that you have. You can always increase W, but it comes at a
cost. We will look at it later. You can always increase W. VT is in the
hands of the foundry and VGS is in your hands. You can always try to
increase VGS, but there is an upper limit.
Here it looks like there is no upper limit and you can start building one
kilometer long wide MOSFETs, but actually there is an upper limit. There
is a hidden upper limit for you. We will see what that is later. These are
your parameters that you can control. and as a designer, your most
powerful tool in all this is w over l and VGS. And from starting from now
till the end of this course, when you are asked to design a circuit, when i
say, okay, here are the specifications of the op-amp, design and op-amp
for me. The only things you will be designing is you will pick the w over l
for every transistor, you will pick the vgs for every transistor. There is
nothing else that you really can control.
Once Vt is fixed, there are small things you can do. I will tell you, we will
learn how you can manipulate Vt or manage Vt. But these are your most
powerful tools. And here, let me define one term, which is your Vgs
minus Vt. You will see this term up here everywhere. You see Vgs minus
Vt. So, this Vgs minus Vt is given a special name. It is called the gate
term. Over a drive voltage Okay, so it's telling you how much of What is
how much of the room do I have above VT? What is my gate voltage
above VT that is deciding my channel population? so if I know my
overdrive voltage it is basically your Overdrive voltage into C aux is
basically a Q n, you know in our model or the MOSFET So this is my gate
overdrive voltage
and this is the aspect ratio. So, this is given a new, a special term called
as the aspect ratio. And this is the gate overdrive voltage all right so
these are your two most powerful tools for uh circuit design. Now, let's
move on. So, now let's look at the gate voltage, adding a small signal
voltage on the gate side. So, you have this plus this, and you have an
IDS. and let's say the vds now is constant. Okay. So that is constant. So
my small signal circuit. Now, I'm not going to draw the large signal or,
you know, your dc circuit uh your small signal circuit is basically, this is
now grounded. I don't see any small signal there. I have a small signal
flowing here and i have a vgs here.
Okay. So now i'm going to give another definition. Now, if my VGS is
modulating here, my IDS is clearly changing, right? And this term, Dow
IDS by Dow VGS or your IDS by VGS has got a special symbol and it's got
a special meaning, a term, it's called the transconductance of the
MOSFET. It is given by the symbol GM, okay? And when you see the
symbol GM, remember that this is the constant slope that i was talking
about. Now you have your ids versus VGS. I have biased myself at vgso
and now my small signal is varying and i therefore have a fluctuation in
my VGS, which is within this bound, right? This is the bound in which my
vgs is fluctuating. And now my small signal current is going to change
accordingly.
All right. and you see this part, if i were to take a magnifying glass and
blow up this part, clearly it's curved, right? It's non-linear, depending on
where i bias it, of course, but it's non-linear. But I'm going to assume
that it's a straight line. This is my VGSO. I will calculate the slope here. I
will calculate the slope here. And I will say that this is a segment that is
this, like this, that looks like this. Okay. And that segment has got a
slope of gm this is my dow ids by dow vgs okay and therefore if i need
to find what is ids given a small VGS, it is simply gm times VGS. Again,
this is one of the most useful relations you will have ids is gm times
VGS.
So suppose i have a mosfet here and you know something is going on
and i say that there is a current. uh there is a voltage v in. Okay, so let
us say, you know, let's not complicate things. Let's say that there is
some voltage v in. here this current is gm times v okay but remember, it
is the gate to source voltage. So suppose i have a mosfet and i say that,
you know, this source is at some potential vb and small signal potential
VB. and this gate is at some small signal potential va and let us say
nothing is happening there and i want to find the small signal current
then it is your ids your your ids is gm times vgs and what is my vgs it is
va minus vb so the source could be fluctuating it need not be grounded
all the time to be fluctuating or it is gm into
bab Okay. Or equivalently, you could have something like this. You could
have a dc node being applied here. Everything is DC, but the source is
fluctuating. Okay. And now what is my IDS? My IDS is simply gm times
VGS, which is gm times 0 minus VB. So you see in my small signal
analysis, If there is no small signal, it is as good as zero. Because all
this DC voltage is already accounted for in my DC analysis. I do not have
to consider that again. And it does not mean that this MOSFET is turned
off. It is still on. You have a channel and everything. It is at that. This is
zero. So, you have a current of minus gm vp flow. Okay.
So, is this clear? If you do not understand this, we cannot proceed at all.
Anybody has any questions on this stuff? Okay, let's have a checkpoint,
right? You understand the general idea of small signal and you know
why I want to use it because I have this LTI theory available to me. And
everybody who understands that, give me a thumbs up or a hand raise.
Everybody who's understood the concept of a small signal. Okay, that's
good. All right. So then the next is, what about small signal resistance
of the MOSFET? When I say small signal resistance, tau vds by dow IDS,
it is finite in linear mode and in saturation mode with no channel and
modulation, it is infinite. How many of you understand that point?
Okay. And, uh, How many of you understand the point of trans
conductance and that being the slope of that ideas VGS curve around
your operating point? Great so Let's move on. Okay. So if you understand
these three You have pretty much everything covered for today Right. So
now let's yes, sir. Go ahead. I Yes, please. Sir, I have one doubt. Sir, in
small signal circuit, both drain and source are grounded. Then, how ids
is flowing uh both drain and source are grounded. Then, how ids is
flowing ah then ids won't flow but uh you know these are these are just
circuits i'm just drawing ids uh ids money your dc current will be flow
so you want to set you want to set uh
Sir, you have drawn circuit in a previous. There you have shown both
source and drain are grounded and you are showing IDS. AC ground. I
did not understand. So let us say, let us forget all this. Let us say you
have some VGS plus some small signal going and you have some VDS,
some 5 volts. And this is at 0. Right, so this is my ground. Okay, let's
take this circuit. So let us say this is 3 volt plus 0.1 volt. Is this, is this
what you're referring to? Let me get it. Yes, sir. Okay. All right. So forget,
forget all the small signal and all that. Okay, so now let us say i put uh
3.1 volts. What is my current through the circuit?
This is in saturation mode. Let us say the VT is, let me keep the VT as 0.
This is in saturation mode. So it is some, and also I will define this mu
COX W over L as some parameter called beta. So it is beta into VGS
minus VT whole squared, which is beta into 3.1 the whole squared. So
now let me change this voltage to 2.9. Has the current changed? No. Yes,
sir, it will change. Has the current changed? Okay, you see, this is 2.9 the
whole square. All right? Yes. Now, both these are at AC ground, but still
there is a current flowing. So, just AC ground doesn't mean that there is
no DC voltage being applied. Okay? So, you can always come back.
If something confuses you, draw everything together, just sort of work it
out from fundamentals and just make sure that you're all clear about
these things, right? Okay, sir. Yeah. All right. So, a few things that, you
know, students somehow slip on. Of course, the more seasoned
students won't do that. But remember, in saturation mode, and you say
it's mu C of W over L. In linear mode, this is the IV characteristics, right?
In saturation mode, there is a by 2 that appears here, okay? Don't forget
that. it's into vgs minus VT, the whole square all right. So let's move on.
But now let's just uh wrap up the saturation mode in more detail. Okay.
So let us say your transistor is in saturation mode with channel length
modulation.
And I want to calculate the small signal output impedance of my
transistor. Okay. I do have channel length modulation okay and uh i want
to compute the output impedance can somebody tell me what is the
output impedance what is the output impedance hello it's one over
lambda id Ah, one over, okay, so let's call this whole thing as some i
naught one over lambda okay so this is my small signal output it's not
infinite, but it's got this particular value. So you see, it's clearly
dependent on your dc current. It's dependent on this dc bias, which is
causing this dc current all right so uh this output impedance, now when
i say output impedance of a MOSFET, I will use the symbol RO, okay?
So when I say a MOSFET has some output influence, I use the symbol
RO. So when I'm drawing a MOSFET in saturation mode, okay? So let us
say a MOSFET is in saturation and I have VDS, this is ground, let us say
this is also grounded, okay? and i have a small ids now if i say there is
no channel length modulation, then it is like an ideal MOSFET. It is like a
mosfet like this. This is the way i will represent. When I say there is
channel length modulation. Now I have an ro which is 1 by lambda i
naught which is nothing but your 1 by lambda mu c ox by 2 w over l into
vgs minus vt whole squared okay so this is my output impedance of the
MOSFET.
So what i'm going to do is i'm not going to change anything. I'm going to
still assume that this mosfet is ideal. And in parallel to this MOSFET, I
have a resistance RO. Okay, so this is uh so you now have your VDS. So
through this MOSFET, Now, if my MOSFET does not have channel length
modulation, what is this IDS equal to? Zero, sir. Zero. There is no current
flowing. If there is no channel length modulation, remember, no amount
of voltage swing here is going to cause any small signal current. There
is only a constant DC current flowing. This is zero. But if I do have
channel length modulation, the way I am going to imagine things is, is
that the channel length modulation part, this part is separately drawn
as a parallel device here okay and through this MOSFET, I will still have
zero current flowing because this is my ideal MOSFET.
And this has added the non-ideality and there is a current that is going
to flow through this now. And that current is simply vds by RO. That is
my current. There is a voltage drop vds across this and there is a
resistance of RO. So this is going to be my current that is flowing
through. So my IDS is simply going to be the zero that is flowing here
plus the current that is flowing in this path, which is VDS by R. Okay, is
this clear? Now we will do some more examples. So let us say you have
a case where you have some VGS being applied. There is some VDS
being applied. Let's say it's something like this. and there is some
channel length modulation also.
And I want to find the ideas. So, first what we can do is we will use
superposition okay we will say that we will only imagine vgs being
applied. This is ground, that is ground. Plus, you see i'm now doing
superposition in the ac circuit itself. I can very conveniently do this.
Whenever you have an analog circuit with multiple signals coming in,
use superposition. But you do not have to. It is just more convenient. So,
this is nothing but a sum of these two. So, let us call this as ID 1 and let
us call this as ID 2. And therefore, my final IDS will be a sum of these
two IDs because of superposition. So, what is ID1? You see there is VGS
here.
Clearly, through this transistor, there is going to be a current on GMVGS
that flows. And let us look at this resistor. What is the voltage across
this resistor? This is at ground. This is at ground. So, there is 0 by RO
current flowing through it, which is 0. So, my ID1 is GMVGS plus 0. which
is gmvgs itself and what is my id 2? Now here my gate is grounded. My
source is at ground. So there is zero gate to source voltage. And let us
say this transistor is in saturation. So there is no gmvgs term here.
There is no vds contribution because this is an ideal transistor in
saturation. So this current is zero. But there will be a current through
that path.
And therefore, my ID2 is going to be 0 plus VDS by RO. VDS by RO. And
therefore, my total IDS because of superposition is simply GMVGS plus
VDS by RO. Okay. Is this clear? Could all of you follow that example?
Everyone who followed this example, give me a thumbs up. Okay. So the
density of the thumbs up is a little less. I'm just getting a quantifying i
i'm just quantifying this uh you know, by looking at the uh time
separation between each of that and uh things so it was not that
spontaneous. So who wants me to repeat this? Okay, so. Am I to
understand everybody understood this well? Yes, Ganesh, go ahead. Sir,
kindly repeat this, sir. Okay, so we will just do a few examples, okay?
I want all of you to get very familiar with this. Okay, so let's say, so this
is how we are going to do small signal analysis. See, I'm not going to go
back to that, you know, undergrad or high school level thing of drawing
small signal equivalent circuits and all that, okay? That is all for
children. So we will just look at the circuit and analyze on that circuit.
And I'm sort of walking you through that process. So let us go here. Let
me make an interesting circuit which has got many things in place. So
let us say for some reason, don't worry about the resistor for now, but
let us say for some reason you have a circuit like this where you have
channel length modulation.
This MOSFET is in saturation. You have channel length modulation and
you have applied some VD here. This point is at some point VB and this
gate is at some gate VG. So let us say this is the case and I want to find
the current that is flowing, the small signal current that is going to be
flowing through this transistor. So I am going to draw it here because
the right place to draw. I want to find that IDS. So, what is IDS under this
circumstance? So, just for the sake of clarity, let us remove that just in
case it confuses anyone. So, this is a condition around the transistor. So,
the first thing I could do is I can straight away go ahead and analyze it
as it is.
I can say that the currents that are flowing through this line, through
this transistor, let us look at it. Since it is in saturation and this from
this type drawn here is ideal, this VD, what is the VDS in this case? It is
VD minus VB, which is VDB. And what is VGS? It is VG minus VB, which
is VGB. Okay? So, let me not use the symbol B. It will later on get
confusing because there is something else I want to talk about. Let me
just simply call this S and B. Right? Yeah. yeah so i don't sorry i'm just i i
was using va and VB, but that db i will bring in later all right so this is
VGS. Okay, so vds and VGS.
Okay, so now uh what you have is uh you have a current, you have to
look at what are the currents flowing through this transistor, and what
are the currents flowing through this R. Right, as simple as that. And
the sum of these two currents is your final current that's flowing
through, that's the current flowing through the entire device that is with
the channel length modulation in place so what is the current flowing
through this this vds is going to do nothing through this transistor the
only component is going to be vgs so there is gm vgs that is going to be
flowing here so this is gm vgs what is the current flowing through this
the current flowing through this is the voltage drop across this is the
vds there's going to be a current of vds by r okay i think
i think we'll just stick to this okay i illustrated superposition just to
emphasize and the fact that you can use it. But if you can follow this
argument, it's more than enough okay so let us say you have something
like this. What I'm telling you is the current here is going to be vds by ro
and the current through this is going to be vgs GM. is this clear? And the
total current is vgs gm plus vds by is that uh is that clear yes okay so if
this example is clear to everyone uh we can just move on and we will
come back to using all this in actual circuits later. So in all your circuits,
in fact, let me do a small circuit analysis here hello sir i heard yes yes
please go ahead.
Sir, this R0 resistance, even if the MOSFET is in linear region, we can
model it through R0, right? If the MOSFET is in linear region, so we will
specifically keep that R0 as a symbol only for saturation in this class.
When the MOSFET is in linear region, then what you must understand is
that this VDS will now produce a current through this MOSFET. If this
MOSFET is in linear region, Now, do not ignore the current because of
VDS, okay? So, your IDS will be VDS by the small signal impedance of
the MOSFET. You remember, we had derived small signal impedance,
RSS, let us call it RSS, or RDS, if you like to call it, okay? RDS, whatever
symbol you like. RDS is 1 by mu COX W over L into VDS minus VD.
so let us simply call it this. And say that the current is this. Because
there i cannot say that this is zero current and then there is a current
this configuration i will specifically use it only for the mosfet in
saturation. Which will be most of the case in this course. Okay? In this
configuration, this current because the vds is always zero. And this
current is always vds i will never use this configuration if it is in linear.
Because I cannot then claim that the current here is zero. if it is a linear
your you should make note of the fact that it's a linear because your dc
biasing is so. And remember that the current through this is VDS. Why
am i calling this zero?
It is basically what is the current through the mosfet in general okay let
me let me sort of generalize all these things. So even in saturation, the
current through the mosfet let's say there is no vg being applied, the
current through the mosfet because of vds is vds by the small signal
output impedance. For any case, linear saturation doesn't matter. Okay.
This RO specifically is the channel length modulation parameter. Let me
put it that way. And I will use this only for that purpose. Okay. So this
rds and saturation is infinite. So that is why i am claiming that this is
zero. But in linear mode, there is no channel length modulation. So
firstly, remove this resistance. Remove this resistance and for linear
mode.
We will specifically only use the MOSFET as it is keeping in mind that
my VDS by ideas is a small signal resistance, which means my VDS by
RDS which is given by VDS by You see of W over L into VTS minus VT is
my ideas Is that is that clear? Yes, okay, I will Retain this. Sir, I have only
for mode operation. Yes, yes, please go ahead. Sir, in the above
example, can you repeat the same problem using the superposition?
Sure, sure. So let us say that. Let us say that you have. VGS. You have
VDS. and ro and this is in saturation. This MOSFET is in saturation. Okay.
So if i have to use superposition, this is going to be equivalent to, and i
want to find what is the current ids flowing through this and this ids is
going to split itself into this part and this part, and then it's going to
come back as IDS.
Okay. So this i'm going to split it off as let's say there's only vgs being
applied and no VDS. Plus. Only VDS being applied. And no VGS. okay and
let's call this current as I1. This current is I2. And this i1 will split itself
into these two parts and come down as I1. This I2 will split itself into
these two parts and come down as I2. And we want to find I1 plus I2,
which will be I2. Is this drawing clear to everyone? Yeah, can I get a, is
this lit up clear? You see, I've ignored, I'm only considering one signal at
a time, you see? All right. Okay, so let's solve for this. Here, what is my
current through this transistor? it is gm vgs and what is this current it
is zero so my i1 is that and in this case what is this current here my i2
this current is zero because that is an ideal mosfet in uh saturation and
all the channel length modulation component is kept here.
And this is vds by So, therefore, my total current. So, this is the same as
what you got earlier. Where did we do that? Yeah. So, these two will be
the same. Okay. Now, for this small circuit, you might be wondering, you
know, why, what is the need of superposition? I'm using superposition
only to illustrate the point. Now, as the circuits get more and more
complex, it might become the best option for you. So you must know
how to use it. All right. Okay, so with that uh can we move on and go and
look at the device physics again? Is this, okay, how many of you here
have understood the dc iv characteristics of the MOSFET? We used a
approximate model and modeled it.
And we have the IV characteristics for the MOSFET. You all know how to
draw the transfer and output characteristics. Okay. Is that all clear?
Okay. Any thumbs up? Yes. Yeah. Okay. Maybe I should ask the other
way, the complement of this question. Anybody who finds any problem
there, see, do not hesitate to ask any questions at this stage, right? At
this stage, I'm willing to go over this thing again and again. Because
some of you are from an ECE background, but I've always had students
who are not from an ECE background also take this course because
they need it for their research. OK, so if you are not comfortable, you
should let me know right away and I will get this going. If you miss this
opportunity, then it's very hard for me somewhere in the middle of the
course to come back to these concepts.
That's very hard for me to do because it breaks the teaching. At this
point, you can ask as many questions as you want. Do not worry about
your colleagues. Nobody thinks anything. Go ahead and ask me all the
questions that you need. You're all here to learn. And don't worry, even
the easy colleagues, they don't know much. Sorry if I'm stepping on your
foot, but this is just to get all the questions out of the way at this point.
All right, so. Moving on so small signal you all understand the concept
of small signal GM the fact are the way I'm going to represent linear
model a linear biased MOSFETs and saturation bias MOSFETs and
channel length modulation etc. All that is clear.
OK, can I get a thumbs up on that? OK. Fine. Sir, but when you were
explaining how much signal it should be small, your voice was breaking.
Okay. The question is, what do you mean by small or how do you
quantify small? The question will reflect back to you as to how much of
non-linearity you are willing to tolerate or how much of error are you
willing to tolerate in your analysis. Because mathematically, strictly
speaking, if you say i want zero error and i want all my analysis to be
perfect uh then you should not go through all this approximation at all.
Then you should straight away go handle the circuit as a non-linear
problem. Okay, because there is no point linearizing it.
But you must also remember that your approximations did not start
now. Your approximations have started in device physics itself. The very
fact that you started approximating, uh, mobility as one constant
property itself is a very big approximation. So if you want absolute
accuracy, you need to really go back to quantum mechanics and model
system completely differently. okay now. But if you are willing to
tolerate the mosfet model as it is and you are willing to tolerate some
error so that you can get things done quickly, then it's a question of.
quantifying the non-linearity in your signal. If you say, okay, it's all fine,
let's get on with it. We will use linear systems theory. And whenever
there is non-linearity, we will quantify it.
We can quantify it by looking at the amount of harmonics in your signal
or what is the distortion and sort of adjust beyond that. So that is what
is traditionally done. So we assume everything is linear and we control,
you know, you will have amplifier stacked in series, you know, one
signal being amplified and then fed to another amplifier and then fed
again and so on. The amplifier is amplifying the signal. At some point,
you are sort of encroaching into, you're sort of really pushing the small
signal limit very hard, but we still continue using it, right? With the
understanding that, yes, I know that I'm working with a nonlinear device.
I know that this is a nonlinear system, and I will keep quantifying my
nonlinearity, okay?
With that understanding, we keep moving on. Okay, later on, you know,
we will see Towards the end of the course, we will worry about non-
linearity and how to quantify it, etc. But till then, we will just keep
moving on. Sir, I have a question. Correct me if I am wrong, sir. Small
signal should be much, much less than driving voltage. That is right. I
mean, it should be smaller than the DC voltages. It is much smaller than
the DC voltages that you apply. Because, see, once you set a DC
operating point, When I'm drawing the signal fluctuating around that and
the ID is fluctuating, I'm assuming a slope being constant and that slope
is defined by the DC operating point. So if my slope being constant
assumption is violated, it can be violated if that small signal is of the
same order of magnitude as my DC voltage.
Suppose I bias the MOSFET at 3 volt gate and I'm applying a gate voltage
that is fluctuating from 0.5 to 6.5 volts. Clearly, you know, I'm treading.
I'm really taking a nonlinear curve and making it a straight line. So my
error is very large. So yes, small signal as a thumb rule implies that it's
much smaller than the DC voltage that you're setting it at. So. So driving
voltage means I'm in VGS minus VTH. Oh, yeah. It doesn't matter. Yeah. it
is smaller than that VGS minus VT. But you will see in practice, you will
see many times your VGS minus VT as you head towards low power
circuits, your VGS minus VT doesn't have too much of room. You might
be operating at 0.25 volts and 0.1 volt and things like that if I really push
things to the limit.
Yes, sir. So, yet, you can still go ahead and use small signal theory,
right? So, so these are, you must have a good understanding of where
things are and you continue using that theory. But sir, there we use a
mosfet as a switch, but here we use uh no no i'm talking about analog
circuits only uh you will see, okay, say for example, you're designing an
op-amp, okay? And I tell you that the power supply, total power supply
for this op-amp is uh let's say, one volt, okay? and your threshold
voltage is, let's say, 0.2 volts, then you will see that, okay, you might
need to stack up four MOSFETs, one on top of each other in your
architecture. And therefore, you really don't have much room.
If you want to keep everything on, you're already at 0.8 volts because of
the threshold voltage. And I'm giving a total power supply itself of only 1
volt, or maybe 1.2 volts. So your overdrive voltage really can't be too big.
You might have to bank on using very large MOSFETs and small
overdrive voltages. so your overdrive voltages are small, but yet as a
general rule, your small signal is even smaller than that. Okay.
Otherwise, uh, essentially you have to you have to you have to satisfy
you need to be convinced that your approximation of it being a linear
system is reasonably valid. If you are convinced to that, then you can go
ahead and do the analysis. And in fact, that's okay. That is a reasonable
assumption because see if you,
uh if you look at a signal from a gps or something uh you're very low.
These signals are in, say, whatever, right? It's almost 60 db below zero
or something. So these are very tiny signals that you're looking at. So
it's all right maybe it's a it's a 10 let's say there is a sensor which
produces something like 10 or 100 micro volts or maybe sub millivolts,
which is okay because your 0.1.2 is hundreds of millivolts. So you are
about one, one-tenth of your DC bias point and so on so forth. You are
okay. In many cases, many practical cases, these are reasonable
assumptions. And the fact that you have so many analog sensor chips
that are working around you is a testament to the fact that all this
analysis is holding true.
So it's experimentally fine to do, get away with these things. All right. If
you're a mathematician and you're too hung up about it, then you should
forget linear circuit analysis and treat this as a non-linear device don't
don't ever step into the small signal domain. Treat this as a non-linear
device etc okay but that's not what we are going to do in this course. We
will linearize it. And here is the linearization. Where is the linearization
here? Here. It is sitting in this constant gm i'm using despite there being
a vgs fluctuation. It is sitting in this constant ro i'm using despite there
being a vds fluctuation. Right? So even channel length modulation,
although we have said it's lambda VGS, where did that come from?
It came because my mu COX W over L into VGS minus VT whole square
had this L that was reducing. So let's call it some L minus some small x.
And you take this out and say it is L into 1 minus x by L. And you do a
Taylor expansion of this. And you're only taking up to the first order
term. which is why that is itself linear. But otherwise, you know,
everything is non-linear about these devices. So, yeah, you have to live
with that fact. But get to your answers for your engineering problems
as soon as possible using the vast toolkit of LTI system theory. All right.
So anyway, that's what it is. So what I will do, since we have only 10
minutes left, I will not teach anything more today.
All right. We will close the class here today. But in the next class, we
will continue. We will go back to the device physics of the MOSFET. And I
will show you how these things that you're taking for granted, such as.
By the way, one one thing that is important. I'll get back to that. Don't
leave. Yes. Don't leave. Yes. So I'm not I'm not taught one thing. So all
these things such as threshold voltage. and what the body voltage can
do, etc. We will look at in the next class. okay but for today, let me wrap
up the class by actually defining what is GM. You know, I told you GM,
but i didn't tell you what this is what is the quantity so what is this if
your mosfet is in saturation mode what is this value
Okay, so we have taken RO out separately. Forget RO. Can somebody tell
me what is GM for an ideal MOSFET in saturation? Mu SX WRL into VGS
minus 80. Okay. All right, great. You can also define GM for a MOSFET in
linear mode. Although we never do it and use it, if it's linear, what is it
going to be? vds okay so you can do this, but we don't really use it much
as you will see in the course. Now, what i want to point you all out to is
you see, look at this value. And what was dow vds by dow ids in linear
mode? It was 1 by mu COX W over L into VGS minus VK. You see,
magnitude-wise, this is the reciprocal of this term.
You see? And there is no physical reason for this. It just so happens
because of the nature of the IV characteristics of this device. I just want
you to keep this in mind. so this is nothing but the small signal
resistance of the MOSFET. when it is in. Linear mode. And this is the gm
of the mosfet when it is in saturation mode. So just keep this thing in
mind that gm of the saturation, the magnitude is of the order of 1 by rss
okay so just keep this fact in mind. We will come back to it later. when
we make some approximations all right with that, let's close today's
class. okay and we will meet again next tuesday and we will continue
this understanding.
So we will do another class on device physics, maybe one or one and a
half lectures, and then we will formally start looking at, you know,
analog integrated circuit design. using voltage amplifiers as our first
step. All right. There are no questions. Let's leave for the day. Thank you,
sir. Thanks a lot. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, sir. Thank you. See you
all.