From this relationship, lets now "derive" the all important characteristic
relating drain current and drain-source voltage. Consider the following configuration:
At the peak so that stored charge at the drain vanishes and the equation is no longer valid. At this point the drain current has reached its "saturation" value as indicated in the figure above. The drain current at maximum follows the parabolic equation . Beyond the peak the current is injected into the insulating region and travels ballistically!
This sequence illustrates how the channel distribution of n-type conductivity looks at a series on points on the Id vs. Vds output characteristic.
Important bottom line: To the extent that channel reduction can be ignored (output resistance infinite), in saturation the drain current of a MOSFET depends only on the gate-source voltage!
(source)(local copy)
If we include the channel reduction effect (see figures above), we can write
which modifies the saturation of drain-Source characteristic as shown in the following (exaggerated) figure:
An additional compication:
For more see the following Commentary on the SUNY-Buffalo MOSFET Applets
t-equivalent circuit:
When the body (substrate) - inversion channel junction is reverse biased the body voltage has no effect on the operation of the device! However, when it is forward biased it tends to increase the threshold voltage (usually a "bad thing") according to the relationship:
(source)
As might be expected, the forward bias effectively acts to increase the body doping! The following figures illustrate the effect:
Variation in the threshold voltage with varying substrate doping levels when the body-source voltage is zero.
Variation in the threshold voltage with varying bodysource voltage at fixed substrate doping levels. (source)
Therefore, for a MOSFET to operate properly the body must be biased to the largest back bias in the circuit - viz., the most negative power suppy rail for NMOST and the most positive power supply rail for PMOS. From a small signal point of view, the body should be at signal ground and, thus, a small signal variation in the gate voltage produces a variation in the drain current.
Small signal equivalent pi-circuit modified to included the effect of body-source signal voltages
This page was prepared and is maintained by R. Victor Jones Comments to: jones@deas.harvard.edu. Last updated November 19, 2001