Microwave FET

PRESENTED BYPAWAN KUMARA YADAV -100103217 PIYUSH PANDAY100103218 P SAI SARATH CHANDRA-1000103219

Field-Effect Transistors(FETs)

The Field Effect Transistor (FET)

Field effect devices are those in which current is controlled by the action of an electron field, rather than carrier injection. Field-effect transistors are so named because a weak electrical signal coming in through one electrode creates an electrical field through the rest of the transistor. The FET was known as a unipolar transistor. The term refers to the fact that current is transported by carriers of one polarity (majority), whereas in the conventional bipolar transistor carriers of both polarities (majority and minority) are involved.

The Field Effect Transistor (FET)

The family of FET devices may be divided into :

Junction FET MOSFET MESFET

MOS Field-Effect Transistors (MOSFETs)

Outline
Introduction Device Structure and Physical Operation Current-Voltage Characteristics

Introduction
Characteristics
Far more useful than two-terminal device Voltage between two terminals can control the current flows in third terminal Quite small Low power Simple manufacturing process

Introduction
Classification of MOSFET
MOSFET
P channel Enhancement type Depletion type N channel Enhancement type Depletion type

JFET
P channel N channel

Widely used in IC circuits

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Device Structure and Physical Operation

Device structure of the enhancement NMOS Physical operation p channel device

Device Structure of the Enhancement-Type NMOS

Perspective view Four terminals Channel length and width

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Device Structure of the Enhancement-Type NMOS

Cross-section view. L = 0.1 to 3 mm

W = 0.2 to 100 mm
Tox= 2 to 50 nm

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Physical Operation

Creating an n channel
Drain current controlled by vDS

Drain current controlled by vGS

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Creating a Channel for Current Flow

The enhancement-type NMOS transistor with a positive voltage applied to the gate. An n channel is induced at the top of the substrate beneath the gate. Inversion layer

Threshold voltage

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Drain Current Controlled by Small Voltage vDS

An NMOS transistor with vGS > Vt and with a small vDS applied. The channel depth is uniform. The device acts as a resistance. The channel conductance is proportional to effective voltage.

Drain current is proportional to (vGS Vt) vDS.

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Figure 4.4 The iDvDS characteristics of the MOSFET in Fig. 4.3 when the voltage applied between drain and source, vDS, is kept small. The device operates as a linear resistor whose value is controlled by vGS.

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vDS Increased
Operation of the enhancement NMOS transistor as vDS is increased. The induced channel acquires a tapered shape. Channel resistance increases as vDS is increased. Drain current is controlled by both of the two voltages.
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Figure 4.6 The drain current iD versus the drain-to-source voltage vDS for an enhancement-type NMOS transistor operated with vGS > Vt.

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Tapering of the channel:-

Figure 4.7 Increasing vDS causes the channel to acquire a tapered shape. Eventually, as vDS reaches vGS Vt the channel is pinched off at the drain end. Increasing vDS above vGS Vt has little effect (theoretically, no effect) on the channels shape.

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Channel Pinched Off

Channel is pinched off
Inversion layer disappeared at the drain point Drain current isnt disappeared

Drain current is saturated and only controlled by the vGS Triode region and saturation region Channel length modulation
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Drain Current Controlled by vGS

vGS creates the channel. Increasing vGS will increase the conductance of the channel. At saturation region only the vGS controls the drain current. At subthreshold region, drain current has the exponential relationship with vGS
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p Channel Device
Two reasons for readers to be familiar with p channel device Existence in discrete-circuit. More important is the utilization of CMOS circuits. Structure of p channel device The substrate is n type and the inversion layer is p type. Carrier is hole. Threshold voltage is negative. All the voltages and currents are opposite to the ones of n channel device. Physical operation is similar to that of n channel device.

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Circuit Symbol

(a)

Circuit symbol for the n-channel enhancement-type MOSFET.

(b)
(c)

Modified circuit symbol with an arrowhead on the source terminal to distinguish it from the drain and to indicate device polarity (i.e., n channel).
Simplified circuit symbol to be used when the source is connected to the body or when the effect of the body on device operation is unimportant.
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Output Characteristic Curves

(a) An n-channel enhancementtype MOSFET with vGS and vDS applied and with the normal directions of current flow indicated. (b) The iDvDS characteristics

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Junction FETs (JFETs)

JFETs consists of a piece of high-resistivity semiconductor material (usually Si) which constitutes a channel for the majority carrier flow. Conducting semiconductor channel between two ohmic contacts source & drain

Junction FETs (JFETs)

The magnitude of this current is controlled by a voltage applied to a gate, which is a reverse-biased. The fundamental difference between JFET and BJT devices: when the JFET junction is reverse-biased the gate current is practically zero, whereas the base current of the BJT is always some value greater than zero.

Junction FETs
JFET is a high-input resistance device, while the BJT is comparatively low. If the channel is doped with a donor impurity, n-type material is formed and the channel current will consist of electrons. If the channel is doped with an acceptor impurity, p-type material will be formed and the channel current will consist of holes. N-channel devices have greater conductivity than pchannel types, since electrons have higher mobility than do holes; thus n-channel JFETs are approximately twice as efficient conductors compared to their p-channel counterparts.

Basic structure of JFETs

In addition to the channel, a JFET contains two ohmic contacts: the source and the drain. The JFET will conduct current equally well in either direction and the source and drain leads are usually interchangeable.

Basic structure Source

p+

Gate G

G
Circuit symbol for n-channel FET
Drain

S S G

D D p+
Metal electrode Insulation (SiO2) p

n-channel

p+
Depletion region n n-channel

Cross section n

p+

Depletion regions

n-channel
D

S
Channel thickness

(b)
p+
(a)

Metal Semiconductor Field Effect Transistors

MESFET
By, P. Sai Sarath

MESFET
MESFET = Metal Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor = Schottky gate FET. The MESFET consists of a conducting channel positioned between a source and drain contact region. The carrier flow from source to drain is controlled by a Schottky metal gate. The control of the channel is obtained by varying the depletion layer width underneath the metal contact which modulates the thickness of the conducting channel and thereby the current.

MESFET

MESFET higher mobility of the The key advantage of the MESFET is the
carriers in the channel as compared to the MOSFET. The disadvantage of the MESFET structure is the presence of the Schottky metal gate. It limits the forward bias voltage on the gate to the turn-on voltage of the Schottky diode. This turn-on voltage is typically 0.7 V for GaAs Schottky diodes. The threshold voltage therefore must be lower than this turn-on voltage. As a result it is more difficult to fabricate circuits containing a large number of enhancement-mode MESFET.

 GaAs MESFETs are the most commonly used and important active devices in microwave circuits. In fact, until the late 1980s, almost all microwave integrated circuits used GaAs MESFETs. Although more complicated devices with better performance for some applications have been introduced, the MESFET is still the dominant active device for power amplifiers and switching circuits in the microwave spectrum.

Basic Structure

Basic Structure

Schematic and cross section of a MESFET

Basic operation of MESFET

This expression omits the parasitic resistances, RS and RD. The parameters in equation above are Z, the width of the channel; b(x), the effective channel depth; q, the electron charge; n(x), the electron density; and v(x), the electron velocity, which is related to the electric field across the channel. Note that if v(x) saturates, ID will also saturate. This saturation current is called IDSS.

 Now consider the effect of the gate electrode placed over the channel but without any gate bias, VG = 0. A depletion region formed under the gate electrode reduces the effective channel depth, b(x), and therefore increases the resistance to current flow under the gate. The depletion region depth is dependent on the voltage drop across the Schottky junction. Since the current flowing through the channel is equivalent to a current flow through a distributed resistor, there is a larger voltage drop across the drain end of the channel than at the source end. This results in the depletionregion depth being greater on the drain side of the channel.

Basic operation of MESFET

Basic operation of MESFET the The nonuniform channel depth has two effects on

device operation. First, there is an accumulation of electrons on the source side and a depletion of electrons on the drain side of the depletion region. This dipole of charge creates a feedback capacitance between the drain and the channel; this capacitance is typically called CDC. The second effect is that the electric field due to the dipole adds to the applied electric field causing the saturation conditions to occur at a lower VD.

 By applying a bias to the gate junction, the depletion depth and therefore the resistance of the current flow between the source and drain and the saturation current can be controlled. If a large enough negative gate bias is applied, the depletion region depth will equal the channel depth, or the channel will be pinched off. This gate bias is called the pinch-off voltage and is given by

Basic operation of MESFET

Basic operation of MESFET

Under pinch-off conditions, the drain current drops to a very small value. Therefore, the transistor can act as a voltage-controlled resistor or a switch.

Metal Semiconductor Field Effect Transistors

MESFET
By, P. Sai Sarath

MESFET
MESFET = Metal Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor = Schottky gate FET. The MESFET consists of a conducting channel positioned between a source and drain contact region. The carrier flow from source to drain is controlled by a Schottky metal gate. The control of the channel is obtained by varying the depletion layer width underneath the metal contact which modulates the thickness of the conducting channel and thereby the current.

MESFET

MESFET higher mobility of the The key advantage of the MESFET is the
carriers in the channel as compared to the MOSFET. The disadvantage of the MESFET structure is the presence of the Schottky metal gate. It limits the forward bias voltage on the gate to the turn-on voltage of the Schottky diode. This turn-on voltage is typically 0.7 V for GaAs Schottky diodes. The threshold voltage therefore must be lower than this turn-on voltage. As a result it is more difficult to fabricate circuits containing a large number of enhancement-mode MESFET.

 GaAs MESFETs are the most commonly used and important active devices in microwave circuits. In fact, until the late 1980s, almost all microwave integrated circuits used GaAs MESFETs. Although more complicated devices with better performance for some applications have been introduced, the MESFET is still the dominant active device for power amplifiers and switching circuits in the microwave spectrum.

Basic Structure

MESFET - Summary

The operation is very similar to that of a JFET. The p-n junction gate is replaced by a Schottky barrier, and the lower contact and p-n junction are eliminated because the lightly doped p-type substrate is replaced by a semi-insulating substrate.

Applications
The higher transit frequency of the MESFET makes it particularly of interest for microwave circuits. While the advantage of the MESFET provides a superior microwave amplifier or circuit, the limitation by the diode turn-on is easily tolerated. Typically depletion-mode devices are used since they provide a larger current and larger transconductance and the circuits contain only a few transistors, so that threshold control is not a limiting factor. The buried channel also yields a better noise performance as trapping and release of carriers into and from surface states and defects is eliminated.

Applications
The use of GaAs rather than Si MESFETs provides two more significant advantages:
First of all the room temperature mobility is more than 5 times larger, while the saturation velocity is about twice that in silicon. Second it is possible to fabricate semiinsulating (SI) GaAs substrates which eliminates the problem of absorbing microwave power in the substrate due to free carrier absorption.

Applications
MESFET applications- Summary: High frequency devices, cellular phones, satellite receivers, radar, microwave devices.
GaAs is a primary material for MESFETs. GaAs has high electron mobility. Generally,
if f > 2 GHz: GaAs transistors are usually used. If f < 2 GHz: Si transistors are usually used.