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Home / Technical Articles / Power Semiconductor Device – MOSFET
TKxP Power MOSFETs in DPAK Package from Toshiba
TKxP Power MOSFETs in DPAK Package from Toshiba

Power MOSFETs are marketed by different manufacturers with differences in internal geometry and with different names such as MegaMOS, HEXFET, SIPMOS, and TMOS. They have unique features that make them potentially attractive for switching applications. They are essentially voltage-driven rather than current-driven devices, unlike bipolar transistors.

The gate of a MOSFET is isolated electrically from the source by a layer of silicon oxide. The gate draws only a minute leakage current on the order of nanoamperes. Hence, the gate drive circuit is simple and power loss in the gate control circuit is practically negligible. Althoug h in steady state the gate draws virtually no current, this is not so under transient conditions.

The gate-to-source and gate-to-drain capacitances have to be charged and discharged appropriately to obtain the desired switching speed, and the drive circuit must have a sufficiently low output impedance to supply the required charging and discharging currents. The circuit symbol of a power MOSFET is shown in Fig . 1.

Power MOSFET circuit symbol
Power MOSFET circuit symbol

Power MOSFETs are majority carrier devices, and there is no minorit y carrier storage time. Hence, they have exceptionally fast rise and fall times. They are essentially resistive devices when turned on, while bipolar transistors present a more or less constant VCE(sat) over the normal operating range.

Power dissipation in MOSFETs is Id2 RDS(on) , and in bipolars it is IC VCE (sat) . At low currents, therefore, a power MOSFET may have a lower conduction loss than a comparable bipolar device, but at higher currents, the conduction loss w ill exceed that of bipolars. Also, the RDS(on) increases w ith temperature.

An important feature of a power MOSFET is the absence of a secondary breakdown effect, which is present in a bipolar transistor, and as a result, it has an extremely rugged switching performance. In MOSFETs, RDS(on) increases with temperature, and thus the current is automatically diverted away from the hot spot. The drain body junction appears as an antiparallel diode between source and drain.

Thus, power MOSFETs w ill not support voltage in the reverse direction. Although this inverse diode is relatively fast, it is slow by comparison with the MOSFET. Recent devices have the diode recovery time as low as 100ns. Since MOSFETs cannot be protected by fuses, an electronic protection technique has to be used.

With the advancement in MOS technology, ruggedized MOSFETs are replacing the conventional MOSFETs. The need to ruggedize power MOSFETs is related to device reliability. If a MOSFET is operating w ithin its specification range at all times, its chances for failing catastrophically are minimal. However, if its absolute maximum rating is exceeded, failure probability increases dramatically. Under actual operating conditions, a MOSFET may be subjected to transients – either externally from the power bus supplying the circuit or from the circuit itself due, for example, to inductive kicks going beyond the absolute maximum ratings.

Such conditions are likely in almost every application, and in most cases are beyond a designer’s control. Rugged devices are made to be more tolerant for over-voltage transients. Ruggedness is the ability of a MOSFET to operate in an environment of dynamic electrical stresses, without activating any of the parasitic bipolar junction transistors.

The rugged device can w ithstand hig her levels of diode recover y dv=dt and static dv =dt .

SOURCE: Power System – Leonard L. Grigsby

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Edvard Csanyi

Electrical engineer, programmer and founder of EEP. Highly specialized for design of LV/MV switchgears and LV high power busbar trunking (<6300A) in power substations, commercial buildings and industry facilities. Professional in AutoCAD programming.

2 Comments


  1. VINODKUMAR
    Jul 30, 2012

    gud site for all solution thanks

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