28/04/2015

VLSI placement: CMOS interview question - Part 1 (MOSFET)

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VLSI placement
This is a blog for people preparing for placement and company interviews in the field of vlsi and electronics. this blog contains important
questions which are generally asked in company written and interview exams
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Wednesday, July 6, 2011

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CMOS interview question - Part 1 (MOSFET)

Here is the list of CMOS interview questions that are most frequently asked during job interview and written
exams. this is the first part of CMOS questions with answers followed by 10 more post on CMOS and digital design
interview questions.
Q: What is meant by CMOS device?
Complementary metaloxidesemiconductor (CMOS) is a technology for constructing integrated circuits.
Two important characteristics of CMOS devices are :
high noise immunity and low static power consumption.
Significant power is only drawn while the transistors in the CMOS device are switching between on and off states. CMOS
also allows a high density of logic functions on a chip. The phrase "metaloxidesemiconductor" is a reference to the
physical structure of certain field-effect transistors, having a metal gate electrode placed on top of an oxide insulator,
which in turn is on top of a semiconductor material. Aluminum was once used but now the material is polysilicon.

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C++ and oops (4)

CMOS and MOSFETs (11)
Computer architecture (7)
Computer programming (10)

Q :) Explain why and how a MOSFET works.

MOSFET is a metal oxide semiconductor Field effect transistor, its unidirectional device like, formed by four terminals
GATE,SOURCE,DRAIN AND SUSTRATE. GATE is the control signal, depends upon voltage applied at gate terminal MOSFET
work on three regions saturation, cutoff and active region. active region is used for amplification, cut-off and saturation
region used for switching operation, mostly digital ckt design
Enhancement-mode, n-channel MOSFET
Cutoff, subthreshold, or weak-inversion mode
When VGS < Vth:

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Digital design (10)
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VLSI (6)

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Triode mode or linear region (also known as the ohmic mode)

When VGS > Vth and VDS < ( VGS - Vth )

Saturation or active mode

When VGS > Vth and VDS > ( VGS - Vth )

Body effect : The body effect describes the changes in the threshold voltage by the change in the source-bulk voltage.
Q: ) What are advantages of BJT over MOSFET?

BJTs have some advantages over MOSFETs for at least two digital applications.
Firstly, in high speed switching, they do not have the "larger" capacitance from the gate, which when multiplied by the
resistance of the channel gives the intrinsic time constant of the process. The intrinsic time constant places a limit on the
speed a MOSFET can operate at because higher frequency signals are filtered out. Widening the channel reduces the
resistance of the channel, but increases the capacitance by exactly the same amount.
The second application where BJTs have an advantage over MOSFETs stems from the first. When driving many other gates,
called fanout, the resistance of the MOSFET is in series with the gate capacitances of the other FETs, creating a
secondary time constant.

2014 (5)
2012 (63)
2011 (8)
July (8)
CMOS interview question - Part 1
(MOSFET)
Microprocessor - Part 4 : 8086
interview questions...
Microprocessor - part 3 : 8085
questions
Verilog - Part 3
Microprocessor - Part 2
Microprocessor - Part 1
Verilog Part 2
Verilog questions part 1

Updates !!!

Q:Q: ) What is Process variation

Process variation is the naturally occurring variation the attributes of transistors (length, widths, oxide thickness) when
integrated circuits are fabricated. It becomes particularly important at smaller process nodes (<65 nm) as the variation
becomes a larger percentage of the full length or width of the device and as feature sizes approach the fundamental
dimensions such as the size of atoms and the wavelength of usable light for patterning lithography masks.
Process variation causes measurable and predictable variance in the output performance of all circuits but particularly
analog circuits due to mismatch.

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Q: )Draw Vds-Ids curve for a MOSFET. Now, show how this curve changes (a) with increasing Vgs (b) with
increasing transistor width (c) considering Channel Length Modulation?

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28/04/2015

VLSI placement: CMOS interview question - Part 1 (MOSFET)

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Ids is directly proportional to B (betta) and B depends on W/L. Therefore Ids is directly proportional to Width of the gate.

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Q: ) Explain various MOSFET capacitances and their significance.

Two significant capacitance are:
Gate(load) capacitance(logical effort) and Diffusion capacitance(parasitic delay)
fig2 and fig3

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Q: ) What is Hot carriers effect?

As transistors switch some high energy(hot) carriers may be injected into the gate oxide and becomes trapped there.
Reducing current in NMOS and increasing current in PMOS.
Q: )What happens if Vds is increased over saturation?
Ans: Pinch off
In saturation vds has no control on the output current ,but if we r taking channel length modultion in account then output
current depends on Vds. In saturations region Rout in infinity,but in case of channel modulation it will have some value.
So, in this case if we start increasing the vds, rout current will start decreasing. Thus the current start increasing and it
may reach a breakdown called avalanche breakdown.
Increasing vds would increase dc current slightly due to channel length modulation, further increase would lead to
avalanche breakdown of transistor.
Q: ) In the I-V characteristics curve, why is the saturation curve flat or constant?
Answer : Pinch off
After saturation Vds have no effect on gate current.
Condition for saturation : VDS > ( VGS - Vth )
Q: ) What are the different regions of operation in a mos transistor? Explain.

Cutoff, subthreshold, or weak-inversion mode

When VGS < Vth:
According to the basic threshold model, the transistor is turned off, and there is no conduction between drain and
source. In reality, the Boltzmann distribution of electron energies allows some of the more energetic electrons at
the source to enter the channel and flow to the drain, resulting in a subthreshold current that is an exponential
function of gatesource voltage. While the current between drain and source should ideally be zero when the
transistor is being used as a turned-off switch, there is a weak-inversion current, sometimes called subthreshold
leakage.

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VLSI placement: CMOS interview question - Part 1 (MOSFET)

Triode mode or linear region (also known as the ohmic mode)

When VGS > Vth and VDS < ( VGS - Vth )
The transistor is turned on, and a channel has been created which allows current to flow between the drain and
the source. The MOSFET operates like a resistor, controlled by the gate voltage relative to both the source and
drain voltages. The current from drain to source is modeled as:
where n is the charge-carrier effective mobility, W is the gate width, L is the gate length and Cox is the gate
oxide capacitance per unit area.

Saturation or active mode :

When VGS > Vth and VDS > ( VGS - Vth )
The switch is turned on, and a channel has been created, which allows current to flow between the drain and
source. Since the drain voltage is higher than the gate voltage, the electrons spread out, and conduction is not
through a narrow channel but through a broader, two- or three-dimensional current distribution extending away
from the interface and deeper in the substrate. The onset of this region is also known as pinch-off to indicate the
lack of channel region near the drain.

Posted by RaJ at 10:08 PM

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