Field Effect Transistor

Dr. Arbab Waheed Ahmad

Transistor Structures

• Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor (MOSFET) can be

made very small
• In MOSFET, the current is controlled by an electric field (field effect) applied
perpendicular to both the semiconductor surface and to the direction of
current.
• The basic transistor principle is that the voltage between two terminals
controls the current through the third terminal
2-terminal MOS structure
• Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor capacitor
• MOS capacitor p-type substrate is connected with
positive terminal
• Metal gate is connected with negative terminal
• Electric field is induced in the given direction
• Holes will experience a force toward oxide layer
and will be accumulated at the interface
 2-terminal MOS structure
• MOS capacitor with
reversed polarities
• Induced E-field is shown
• The holes in p-type will be
pushed away and a
negative space charge
region is created
• Negative charge is induced
in the depletion region
• Electron inversion layer
• Hole inversion layer in n-
type substrate
N-channel MOSFET (Structure)
• Gate terminal
• Oxide
• P-type substrate
• N-type Source terminal
• N-type Drain terminal
• The current in a MOSFET is the result of the flow of charge in the
inversion layer, the channel region
N-channel MOSFET (Operation)
• With zero biased at gate source and drain are
separated by p-type substrate region
• Two back-to-back diodes, current is zero
• Gate voltage is applied, electron inversion
layer is induced which connects n-type source
and n-type drain
• A current can be generated in the channel
• Carriers in the channel are electrons, so n-
channel MOSFET (NMOS)
N-channel MOSFET (Operation)
• The source terminal supplies carriers that flow through the
channel, and the drain terminal allows the carriers to drain
from the channel.
• For the n-channel MOSFET, electrons flow from the source
to the drain with an applied drain-to-source voltage, which
means the conventional current enters the drain and leaves
the source.
• The magnitude of the current is a function of the amount of
charge in the inversion layer, which in turn is a function of
the applied gate voltage.
• Since the gate terminal is separated from the channel by an
oxide or insulator, there is no gate current.
• Similarly, since the channel and substrate are separated by a
space-charge region, there is essentially no current through
the substrate