how2 turn on a mosfet.pdfVIP

Exclusive Technology Feature ? 2014 How2Power. All rights reserved. Page 1 of 8 ISSUE: October 2014 How2 Turn On A MOSFET by Sanjay Havanur, Vishay Siliconix, Santa Clara, Calif. On a portal dedicated to power electronics professionals the topic of turning on a MOSFET might sound trivial, like asking how to boil water on a cooking show. After all, it shouldnt be a major issue. Unlike bipolar devices, field effect transistors are majority carrier devices. One does not have to worry about current gain, tailoring the base current to match the extremes of hFE and variable collector currents, or providing negative drives. MOSFETs are voltage driven, they turn on when a voltage, equal to or greater than the threshold, is applied to the gate, right? Just how wrong depends on when the mistake is discovered. The most common time frame is a few days before the mass production deadline. There has not been a single documented case of a design engineer having discovered the problem during simulation. The question of how to turn on a MOSFET, or at a more basic level, the minimum voltage that should be applied to the gate, has come up for renewal with more and more converters being controlled digitally. While digital control offers the next level of flexibility and functionality, the DSPs, FPGAs, and other programmable devices with which it is implemented are designed to operate with low supply voltages. It is necessary to boost the final PWM signal to the level required by the MOSFET gate. This is where things begin to go wrong, because of misconceptions about what really turns on a MOSFET. Many digital designers look at the gate threshold voltage and jump to the conclusion that, just as with their digital logic, the MOSFET will change state as soon as the threshold is crossed. First, the threshold voltage VGSTH is not intended for system designers. It is the gate voltage at which the drain current crosses the threshold of 250 μA. It is also