ABSTRACT
The MOSFET is the most important device for digital integrated circuits today. It is a unipolar device, that is, electrical current is carried predominantly by the drift of one type of carrier: electrons in the n-MOS transistor and holes in the p-MOS device. This makes the MOS transistor inherently fast switching, because minority carrier storage effects are unimportant, and the switching speed is limited predominantly by parasitic capacitances. In the linear region, left of the parabola, the drain current increases approximately linearly with the drain-to-source voltage. Saturation is characterized by approximately constant drain current, with its locus is to the right of the parabola. Each of these modes of operation is discussed in more detail in this chapter. The controlling variable is the gate-to-source voltage, and the controlled variable is the drain-to-source resistance.
