Tuesday, December 9, 2008

The Principle and working of a MOSEFT

The MOSEFT is an extension of the EFT family, where EFT stands for Engineering Friendly Transistor. To understand the principle behind its working it is necessary to start from the basics.
The first MOSEFT was synthesized in January 2008, by a group of college dropouts. The aim was to reduce the complexity involved in studying the working of transistors to make lives of electronics engineers much easier. It was understood that the concept of electrons and holes was the root for the problem; hence it had to be eliminated from the transistor operation. This lead to the discovery of ‘magic particles’. These particles are the basic components of MOSEFTs. ‘Magic particles’ (MPs) in short have very attractive properties that make them ideal for transistor operations

Advantages of MPs over holes and electrons
  1. There are only one type of MP particles, hence it is impossible to mix them up during exams
  2. They have automatic charge formulation property. This means that they decide their own charge depending on the situation, independent of what is assigned to them in the equation. Meaning, that negative sign in the equation can be left just as it is, the magic particle will make it positive; and the solution correct.
  3. The M factor: This is a factor that arises from the derivation of MPs on the Magic Particle Theory, which is beyond the scope of most texts that make sense. However the M factor can be understood without doing an in depth analysis. It basically has the property that it abstracts all the interactions between MPs. This is very helpful in understanding MOSEFTs. Due to the M factor all the inner working of the transistor is automatically abstracted.
Principle of MOSEFTs

MOSEFT Structure

The MOSEFT structure is a very simple one. There is no mucking about with emitters and collectors and drains, etc. There is only one central element in the MOSEFT, it is called ‘The Box’. It is named so due to its appearance. The Box has certain properties that makes it an ideal candidate for the MOSEFT structure.
  1. There is only one ‘Box’, there is no box1, box2 and so on. Even if there is more than one MOSEFT in succession, all one has to do is to put them all in one ‘box’. This will be proved shortly.
  2. There are no constraints on the shape of the box, though it is generally assumed by engineers throughout the world, that it is rectangular in shape but this is not necessary. In fact boxes which are not perfectly rectangular are seen to be more effective. Thus it better if these boxes are drawn on the exam paper without a scale, as that gives a more accurate description
MOSEFT Operation

The MOSEFT transistor performs the basic transistor task of controlling a voltage or current with an input voltage or current. This is done with the help of the MPs. Consider a ‘Box’, this box encapsulates the whole transistor. Now if an input current is given to the transistor, an output current or voltage can be obtained. For understanding how this output is controlled it necessary to understand the IC theorem

IC THEOREM

The IC theorem states that, when there is a variable to be controlled and output required, it can be assumed that a controller is present. This controller can then perform the controlling operation. The proof of this theorem is loosely based on one of Schrodinger’s theorems (to find out which one, refer SCH [33]). By going up one level of abstraction one doesn’t really need to see the variable being controlled. Instead one can assume that there is a controller doing the controlling. This is valid as according to Schrodinger’s hypothesis there is a probability that there is a controller present. Since there is no way ascertaining that a controller isn’t there due to the abstraction we might as well assume that there is one present. Thus it is called the Imaginary Controller (IC) theorem. This theorem blends in beautifully with magical particles as we shall see.
Thus according to the IC theorem there is a controller inside the box controlling the input and hence the transistor operation is performed. The conversion from voltage to current or vice versa is performed by the MPs. As the inner working of the Magic Particles is abstracted by the M factor, the need to understand the operation is eliminated.

Cascading of multiple transistors

As with other transistors multiple MOSEFTs can be cascaded. The individual Boxes can be combined into one single ‘Box’. The proof for this is straight forward. The crux is to understand that, none of the workings within the ‘Box’ is understood. Hence if one has n boxes, then one does not understand the working of any of them. Therefore these can be clubbed together in one big ‘Box’ whose working will not be understood by anyone either.

Current Voltage Characteristics of the MOSEFT

The current voltage characteristics of a MOSEFT unlike other transistors do not have a graphical description. This saves a lot of time for engineers who need to have complete and thorough understanding of the MOSEFT but are facing time bound constraints (for example one day before the exam). The characteristics of the MOSEFT are best explained by an example.
Consider a MOSEFT, when you give an input current to it, you automatically obtain a suitable output at the other end of, ‘The Box’. This is due to the automatic satisfaction property of the EFT that arises due to the magical particles. A detailed explanation of this is given in the following section.

The Magical Effect

When you give a current of 5mA into the transistor and you already know that at the other end the voltage must come out to be around 7V (which is gathered by referring to the answer at the back of the textbook) the MPs are accordingly adjusted to generate the voltage. This occurs due to a property of the MPs called the ‘Look Ahead Property’. This property actually enables the MPs to look ahead in time to see what output is needed. So while solving the problem though the person hasn’t reached the end of the solution yet, the MPs by virtue of this property are able to know what output (or answer) is required and hence generate it. Thus the solution is arrived at.
This procedure is a watertight one. Meaning, it cannot go wrong and gives hundred percent accuracy. This is one of the biggest reasons for the popularity of MOSEFTs. This effect is called the Magical Effect. When asked how the current or voltage output is determined in a MOSEFT, it can be said that, “It occurs magically” or, “Its magic”. Before the discovery of the ‘Magical Effect’, another theory was used to explain input/output determination, called the ‘Tunnel Through’ theorem. This is theorem was however discarded as it suffered from a few obvious deficiencies.

Tunnel Through Theorem

To explain how the MPs always arrived at the right answer to a given problem, the Tunnel Through Theorem was suggested. According to this theorem, just like holes and electrons in normal transistors can tunnel through energy barriers, the MPs can tunnel through barriers too. Due to this property it was suggested that the MPs tunneled through the pages of the text book, and reached the solution page, thus recognizing the answer before the problem was solved by the user. Hence the MPs were able to generate the solution for the user. This theorem was however unable to explain the following points
  1. How were solutions arrived at when the answer page was in a different text book?
  2. What about the problems whose solution are not available?
However, for the first case, it was suggested that MPs could tunnel all the way through to the other book and find the solutions. And for the second case, since engineers never deal with problems whose solutions are not known, it is safe to assume that the second case never arises.
Thus with the help of the Tunnel Through Theorem and The Magical Effect the automatic satisfaction property of the MOSEFT is explained. Meaning, the MOSEFT outputs automatically adjust themselves to the users need.

Conclusion

This far it has been shown that MOSEFTs are the most engineering friendly transistors available. There are no complicated wires or circuit diagrams to be drawn. No graphs are required. The various parameters of the MOSEFT (MPs , Box etc) carry huge advantages over normal transistors. The only downside of using the MOSEFT is that it has only been realized on theory, but however it is still a great help to engineers and is an essential tool in making their life easier.