3 The Back-Gate Effect

Here we show how we obtained κ from the EKV model:

WORK

We see that κ is directly related to the slope of the source voltage vs. gate voltage plot. In
Figure 3.1 and 3.3 are the plots of κ as a function of current level for 3 gate voltages. In
Figure 3.2 and 3.4 are the plots of κ as a function of gate voltage for 3 current levels. κ
varies moderately (~ 0.2) in respect to the gate voltage for a given current level, however
it doesn’t vary very much with respect to channel current (~ .02 to ~.06 depending on the
type of transistor) for a given gate voltage. Given this, we conclude that the constant-κ
assumption is valid for constant gate voltages (with or without changing channel current
levels).

4 The Early Effect

We basically eyed the saturation region and fitted a line for each saturation current level.
We then calculated the Isat and –Va by finding the y-intercept and x-intercept respectively.
Doing this in a loop, we extracted the Early voltages and graphed them as a function of
saturation current level. Figure 4.1 shows the resulting graphs.
The systematic difference between the two transistor types was that the pmos
Early voltages were much smaller (by approximately an order of magnitude). This
implies that the saturating region for the pmos has a much steeper slope for the current.
The Early voltage does not seem to change systematically for currents below and
above threshold. The nmos VA seems to slope down at an almost linear descent in the
level of ~ 102, while the pmos data portrays a rising but curving downward curve in the
magnitude of ~ 10.

5 Intrinsic Gains of MOS Transistors

The two intrinsic gains are related by

g m = κg s

We extracted gs and r0 from the graph of the drain characteristics. gs is the slope of the
line at VDS = 0 and r0 is the inverse of the slope of the line in the saturation region. As
seen in Figure 5.1, the intrinsic gain seems to be the highest near the moderate inversion
region (threshold). The approximation that that gsr0 >> 1 is valid, since for the nmos gsr0
~ 102 to 103 and for pmos it is ~ 10 to 102.
 The approximation that gmr0 >> 1 is also a good one, since gmr0 = κgsr0, and κ is ~
0.4 to 0.9. Also, there is a systematic difference between the two transistors: the pmos
intrinsic gain is about an order of magnitude smaller than that of the nmos.