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Transmission Gate question

A

Angmor

Jan 1, 1970
0
I've been staring at a transmission gate circuit for a while trying to
figure out how it works and I'm not making any progress. The problem
we have (yes, it's a homework problem) is to determine the on
resistance for the specific gate we've been given. The circuit diagram
is basically just an nmos and a pmos connected in parallel. The input
side (I know they're interchangable) is set to 5V and both of the fets
are on (5v & 0v gate for n/p, respectively). No output voltage is
given. I've searched for a while on google trying to find helpful
information, but all I can find is that the input signal is supposed to
pass through to Vout so that Vout is almost equal to Vin.

My question is... How can I determine the output voltage? I can't
determine the transistor mode or currents without the output voltage,
and if I can't do that I cannot determine the on resistance. I am not
asking for an answer to my problem, I would just like a nudge in the
right direction if possible. This problem is driving me crazy.
 
A

Angmor

Jan 1, 1970
0
Something I didn't make entirely clear.... I don't understand how they
can just state that the output voltage follows the input voltage
closely. Where is the justification? This is the real problem I'm
having.
 
P

Pooh Bear

Jan 1, 1970
0
Angmor said:
Something I didn't make entirely clear.... I don't understand how they
can just state that the output voltage follows the input voltage
closely. Where is the justification? This is the real problem I'm
having.

When the fets are on clearly this must be the case ( assuming the load is
much greater than the fets' on resistance of course - which is how you use
these things ).

Graham
 
N

Noway2

Jan 1, 1970
0
Fets are controlled by the gate source voltage Vgs and its relationship
to the threshold voltage. When the fets are fully turned on, they act
as a resistance equivalent to the Rds-on parameter. Think of the
devices as being switches, either on or off and then modeling them as a
small or large resistance.

Be aware, the input - output side of the fets (drain and source) are
not really interchangable. I was taught that they were in school and
got bit by this on a circuit board design. The result was $500 and two
weeks down the toilet. I didn't understand it at first, until I
realized I was trying to turn the device on by controlling Vds not Vgs.

Most text books focus too much on the Id = k(Vgs - vt)^2 equation.
Unless you are getting into semiconductor physics, this equation is
probably about worthless. It may help for you to look at some product
data sheets for fets and look at the curves relating on resistance
versus the Vds and Vgs.
 
M

Mark Fergerson

Jan 1, 1970
0
Angmor said:
I've been staring at a transmission gate circuit for a while trying to
figure out how it works and I'm not making any progress. The problem
we have (yes, it's a homework problem) is to determine the on
resistance for the specific gate we've been given. The circuit diagram
is basically just an nmos and a pmos connected in parallel. The input
side (I know they're interchangable) is set to 5V and both of the fets
are on (5v & 0v gate for n/p, respectively). No output voltage is
given. I've searched for a while on google trying to find helpful
information, but all I can find is that the input signal is supposed to
pass through to Vout so that Vout is almost equal to Vin.

My question is... How can I determine the output voltage? I can't
determine the transistor mode or currents without the output voltage,
and if I can't do that I cannot determine the on resistance. I am not
asking for an answer to my problem, I would just like a nudge in the
right direction if possible. This problem is driving me crazy.

What happens to the bulk when you "turn the transistor on"?

What circuit node is the output terminated to, and through what (load)?

IOW first find what limits the output voltage can be within and go
from there.


Mark L. Fergerson
 
P

Pooh Bear

Jan 1, 1970
0
Noway2 wrote:

Be aware, the input - output side of the fets (drain and source) are
not really interchangable.

Some JFET types are so interchangeable though. e.g Siliconix J111, J174
familes

Graham
 
G

Guest

Jan 1, 1970
0
: My question is... How can I determine the output voltage? I can't
: determine the transistor mode or currents without the output voltage,
: and if I can't do that I cannot determine the on resistance. I am not
: asking for an answer to my problem, I would just like a nudge in the
: right direction if possible. This problem is driving me crazy.

Not true. You only need the gate voltage and the source voltage
to determine the current. You can "guess" at the drain voltage and see
what happens. What you will find is that the drain voltage doesn't matter
(in this case.)

Let's look at the NMOS first. NMOS vg = Vdd. Suppose NMOS Vs
(input signal) = 0V. NMOS Vgs = Vdd. Let's consider 3 possibilities for
NMOS Vd (output signal): Vd = Vs = 0V, Vd = Vdd, and Vd is somewhere
between Vdd and 0. If Vd = 0V, Vds = 0V. With Vgs = Vdd, and Vds = 0V,
the NMOS device is in the linear region with a Vds of 0V, which implies
that Id = 0 (something that you would expect of a floating transmission
gate, right?.) Now suppose that Vd = Vdd. Now Vds = Vdd. With Vgs =
Vdd, and Vds = Vdd, the NMOS must be in saturation, because Vds > Vgs -
Vt. In saturation, Id = beta/2 * (Vgs - Vt)^2. This means that a current
would be flowing from drain to source, which is not something that you
would expect (in the steady state) of a floating transmission gate. Now,
suppose that Vd = Vdd - Vt - delta (where delta is some very small
number.) With Vgs = Vdd, and Vds = Vdd - Vt - delta, the NMOS is in the
linear region, and has Id = beta * (Vgs - Vt)*Vds - Vds^2/2. There will
be a non-zero current flowing from drain to source, which, again, is not
something you would expect from a floating transmission gate.

I'll leave the analysis of the PMOS to the reader, but it is
nearly identical. In my reasoning, I assumed that the "output" (i.e. one
side) of the transmission gate was floating. I forget if this was the
case in your original problem. What I mean by floating is that it is
connected to a load that is high impedance at DC. THis could be an actual
open circuit, or something that looks like one at DC (like a capacitor
connected between the output and ground, which is the case if it is
driving the input of a CMOS gate.) If this is not the case, the analysis
is a little diffrerent, but you can use the same techniques to prove this
to yourself.

Hope that helps,

Joe
 
G

Guest

Jan 1, 1970
0
: Most text books focus too much on the Id = k(Vgs - vt)^2 equation.
: Unless you are getting into semiconductor physics, this equation is
: probably about worthless. It may help for you to look at some product
: data sheets for fets and look at the curves relating on resistance
: versus the Vds and Vgs.

It's more a distinction between analog and digital circuits,
rather than semiconductor vs (? -- MOSFETs are semiconductors.) Devices
in CMOS digital circuits spend most of their time in either the cutoff or
the linear region, only passing through the saturation region (whose drain
current is roughly given by the equation you presented above) when they
are switching. On the other hand, most useful analog circuits involve
amplifiers, which rely on devices that exhibit the controlled
current-source behavior characteristic of the saturation region of
operation.

Joe
 
A

Anthony Fremont

Jan 1, 1970
0
: Most text books focus too much on the Id = k(Vgs - vt)^2 equation.
: Unless you are getting into semiconductor physics, this equation is
: probably about worthless. It may help for you to look at some product
: data sheets for fets and look at the curves relating on resistance
: versus the Vds and Vgs.

It's more a distinction between analog and digital circuits,
rather than semiconductor vs (? -- MOSFETs are semiconductors.) Devices
in CMOS digital circuits spend most of their time in either the cutoff or
the linear region, only passing through the saturation region (whose drain
current is roughly given by the equation you presented above) when they
are switching. On the other hand, most useful analog circuits involve
amplifiers, which rely on devices that exhibit the controlled
current-source behavior characteristic of the saturation region of
operation.

I think you mean "linear" where you say "saturation" and vice versa.
 
N

notme

Jan 1, 1970
0
Angmor said:
I've been staring at a transmission gate circuit for a while trying to
figure out how it works and I'm not making any progress. The problem
we have (yes, it's a homework problem) is to determine the on
resistance for the specific gate we've been given. The circuit diagram
is basically just an nmos and a pmos connected in parallel. The input
side (I know they're interchangable) is set to 5V and both of the fets
are on (5v & 0v gate for n/p, respectively). No output voltage is
given. I've searched for a while on google trying to find helpful
information, but all I can find is that the input signal is supposed to
pass through to Vout so that Vout is almost equal to Vin.
My question is... How can I determine the output voltage? I can't
determine the transistor mode or currents without the output voltage,
and if I can't do that I cannot determine the on resistance. I am not
asking for an answer to my problem, I would just like a nudge in the
right direction if possible. This problem is driving me crazy.

As with most non-linear, it requires somewhat of a leap of faith. We have
to make an assumption about the behavior of the circuit, so lets assume
the book is right. If the output follows the input, then essentially by
definition Vds is going to be very small. The point of putting 5V and 0V
on the gate is to maximize Vgs, therefore its likely that (Vgs-Vth)>Vds.

Bear in mind that you have a complimentary setup here. If the input
voltage were very high (say 4.8V), then Vgs-Vth on the NMOS may actually
be negative, but in the same instance for the PMOS it will be very large.
So using complimentary transistors should keep one of the transistors
in the linear region at all times.

for linear region: Ids=Beta((Vgs-Vth)*Vds-Vds^2/2)

Now, consider on resistance is Rds. R=dV/dI.

it is probably easier to take dI/dV and invert. We get 1/(Beta*((Vgs-Vth)
- Vds)) If we assume Vds is small, then that term drops out and we see
that the resistance is almost completely dependent on Beta*(Vgs-Vth).
Now, what happens if your input voltage gets very high or low... Well,
you first go into saturation, and then cutoff. The standard simple models
don't work well in cutoff, so we'll just say the resistance is infinite
there. In the case of saturation Ids=Beta/2*(Vgs-Vth)^2*(1+Lambda*Vds)
So now we have 1/(Beta/2*(Vgs-Vth^2)*Lambda). While, t-gate transistors
are typically quite small to minimize capacitance, the lambda is still
likely pretty small compared to unity, so the resistance of that
transistor goes way up. At the same time, the complimentary transistor is
likely to be on pretty hard, so when you put them in parallel the
saturated transistor's contribution to overall resistance is fairly small.

Now, what if the books statement was wrong. Well, in order to have a
substantial Vds you'd have to be loading the t-gate quite heavily compared
the Rds you calculated above. At some point as you increase the load
(decrease the load's resistance to ground), the Vds will keep growing and
they will become saturated. At that point, the circuit starts working
poorly. But now that you know how T-gates work, you should be able to
design them such that you don't allow Vds to get large, hence making them
work much less effectively.

As for the other people who made some claims such as:

1) Drain and Souce aren't interchangable.... Thats absurd, of course they
are. Transistors are four terminal devices, and the source and drain are
completely interchangable. In the case of an N-MOS transistor the source
is whichever terminal is at a lower voltage, and in the case of a P-MOS
its whichever terminal is at a higher voltage. In the case of some
discrete transistors, in order to minimize pin count, they tie the bulk to
the source internally, thereby making it a 3 terminal device and making it
non-symmetric. However, that doesn't mean that the transistor terminals
aren't interchangable, just some packages aren't.

2) Saturation is only useful for semiconductor physics?! How the heck do
you think people make current mirrors? With MOSFETS in triode? Get real,
a transistor is a transistor, its not a switch, or a resistor, or anything
else. They are wonderful devices which can be operated in a number of
different regions and be used for many different things.

3) Joe's claims that digital circuits spend most of there time in linear
or cut-off region and only transition through saturation is completely
correct. He didn't mix up saturation and linear. The problem arises
because most people don't understand what saturation and linear region of
a MOSFET really mean. They describe e-field configurations on a MOSFET,
not how "on" a device is or such.
 
J

John Larkin

Jan 1, 1970
0
I've been staring at a transmission gate circuit for a while trying to
figure out how it works and I'm not making any progress. The problem
we have (yes, it's a homework problem) is to determine the on
resistance for the specific gate we've been given. The circuit diagram
is basically just an nmos and a pmos connected in parallel. The input
side (I know they're interchangable) is set to 5V and both of the fets
are on (5v & 0v gate for n/p, respectively). No output voltage is
given. I've searched for a while on google trying to find helpful
information, but all I can find is that the input signal is supposed to
pass through to Vout so that Vout is almost equal to Vin.

My question is... How can I determine the output voltage? I can't
determine the transistor mode or currents without the output voltage,
and if I can't do that I cannot determine the on resistance. I am not
asking for an answer to my problem, I would just like a nudge in the
right direction if possible. This problem is driving me crazy.

What do you mean by "we've been given"? Were you given a physical
part, or a chip layout, or something else?

If it's a physical part, use an ohmmeter!

John
 
A

Angmor

Jan 1, 1970
0
We were given a circuit diagram with a floating input and a floating
output, so an ohmmeter isn't an option. Thank you everyone for the
replies, they've been helpful.
 
A

Angmor

Jan 1, 1970
0
We were never actually told that the circuit was a transmission gate.
I only found that out by browsing through the book. For the homework
we're supposed to analyze it assuming no prior knowledge of
transmission gates. Therefore for all we know the resistance could be
1 MOhm, so it doesn't seem possible to make any reasonable assumptions
about the source voltage in this case. Am I wrong? I've read over
these posts multiple times, and it always seems to come down to
assuming the truth of what the book states. Unfortunately we were not
told that the voltage passes through, that was just something I read
online. Am I missing information in this problem? Without know the
resistance of the circuit I can't justify my output voltage
assumptions, and without knowing the output (Source) voltage I can't
determine the resistance. My apologies if I'm missing something that
was posted, I'm just trying to get this through my head.
 
A

Angmor

Jan 1, 1970
0
On other thing.. we were however told to find the "on-resistance," is
that enough to assume Vds is small?
 
J

Jasen Betts

Jan 1, 1970
0
I've been staring at a transmission gate circuit for a while trying to
figure out how it works and I'm not making any progress. The problem
we have (yes, it's a homework problem) is to determine the on
resistance for the specific gate we've been given. The circuit diagram
is basically just an nmos and a pmos connected in parallel. The input
side (I know they're interchangable) is set to 5V and both of the fets
are on (5v & 0v gate for n/p, respectively). No output voltage is
given. I've searched for a while on google trying to find helpful
information, but all I can find is that the input signal is supposed to
pass through to Vout so that Vout is almost equal to Vin.

My question is... How can I determine the output voltage? I can't
determine the transistor mode or currents without the output voltage,
and if I can't do that I cannot determine the on resistance. I am not
asking for an answer to my problem, I would just like a nudge in the
right direction if possible. This problem is driving me crazy.

attach a reasonable load to the output.

the on-resistance may somewhat load-dependant.

Bye.
Jasen
 
G

Guest

Jan 1, 1970
0
: I think you mean "linear" where you say "saturation" and vice versa.

Nope. In a MOSFET, the linear (also called triode or
non-saturation) region occurs when Vds < Vgs - Vt. The drain current is
given by Id = beta * [(Vgs - Vt)*Vds - Vds^2/2]. If you assume that Vds
is small, you can neglect the Vds^2 term, and the drain current is linear
with respect to Vds, hence the name linear region. If you don't neglect
the Vds^2 term, the drain current is obviously not linear, but that's
where the name comes from.

In the saturation region, (when Vds > Vgs - Vt) the drain current
does not vary with respect to Vds (at least to first order,) so it is
saturated at its maximum magnitude.

This is reversed from BJT nomenclature, where the forward active
region of a BJT is somewhat analogous to the saturation region of a
MOSFET, and the linear region of a MOSFET is somewhat analogous to the
saturation region of a BJT.

Joe
 
R

Rich Grise

Jan 1, 1970
0
On other thing.. we were however told to find the "on-resistance," is that
enough to assume Vds is small?

The on resistance is listed on the data sheet for the part. In a data
sheet for a single MOSFET, it's listed as "Rdson", for "resistance,
drain-to-source, while conducting as hard as it can".

According to what we've been able to extract from you, that's the only
answer that makes sense.

What is the actual text, word-for-word, of the test question?

Good Luck!
Rich
 
N

nothanks

Jan 1, 1970
0
Angmor said:
We were never actually told that the circuit was a transmission gate.
I only found that out by browsing through the book. For the homework
we're supposed to analyze it assuming no prior knowledge of
transmission gates. Therefore for all we know the resistance could be
1 MOhm, so it doesn't seem possible to make any reasonable assumptions
about the source voltage in this case. Am I wrong? I've read over
these posts multiple times, and it always seems to come down to
assuming the truth of what the book states. Unfortunately we were not
told that the voltage passes through, that was just something I read
online. Am I missing information in this problem? Without know the
resistance of the circuit I can't justify my output voltage
assumptions, and without knowing the output (Source) voltage I can't
determine the resistance. My apologies if I'm missing something that
was posted, I'm just trying to get this through my head.

Unfortunately, in engineering you have to make assumptions about all sorts
of things because problems aren't completely specified. I was just
reading a book in which they were talking about how a spring is only
mostly linear. At some point if you exert a "large" amount of force on
it the spring breaks and ceases to be even remotely linear, permanently.
Unfortunately, its very difficult to analyze non-linear or multi-modal
things (whether they be circuits, control systems, what have you), so as
engineers you often have to make the problem more managable and reasonable.
Make assumptions and approximations. Linearize things about an operating
point, etc. The small angle approximation, sin theta = theta and cos
theta = 1 for smallangles is an excellent example. Is it completely right?
No... Is it close enough? For a lot of things, yes. There is going to be
plenty of uncertainty in the answer anyway, since your value of K and Vt
are never going to be fully known.

However there are things to bear in mind regarding assumptions and
approximations.

1) It often takes experience and education to learn whats reasonable and
whats not.

2) You should always state what assumptions and approximations you made
while solving a problem, and you should be able to justify them.

3) You should *ALWAYS* verify your answer and make sure that the
assumptions you made are reasonable given the answer you came up with. If
you are using the small angle approximation and realize that at some
point, theta is 1, then the small angle approximation is probably not
justifiable.

You do have the question of what is Vds... Its a lot easier to solve this
problem if you assume Vds is small than its large. So assume its small,
solve the problem and then go back and see if its a justifiable
assumption. If you find that Rds is about 100 ohms. Then you can say
that the solution you have is probably a reasonable as long as the load
resistance is > 1000 ohms. So thats your answer, the Rds is about 100
ohms so long as the load is > 1000. Thats a reasonable answer. It's not
a perfect answer, but its unlikely you'll be driving a load much heavier
than that, so its good enough. On the other hand you may find that Rds is
1 MOhm, and decide that its not a reasonable assumption and then you have
to go back and come up with a more complicated solution.

Now, you are right that they don't specify Vs and it will impact the Rds,
but my guess is because of the complimentary nature of the architecture.
It won't make that much difference. Its reasonable to assume Vs is
somewhere between 0 and 5V because the gate voltage is probably coming
from digital logic which is going to drive the gate to the rails of the
circuit. So pick some values of Vs and see if it makes a difference. Go
with 0V, 2.5V and 5V, that probably gives you a pretty complete range of
answers (all P-fet, all N-fet, and half each).
 
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