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BJT or (MOS)FET?

A project log for Brainless TritiLED

My attempt for TritiLED without a MCU

smajdalfSmajdalf 07/10/2019 at 15:030 Comments

The answer seems easy - everyone knows BJTs are old and power hungry. They may have some marginal applications but FETs rule the world. Yet I believe BJTs may have important advantages over FETs.

It is true a BJT needs constant base current to conduct while a FET needs only to charge a few pF of Gate capacitance to turn on. If the switching frequency is low (and we aim for very low frequency around 100Hz) FET is seemingly more efficient. But there is a catch - FET needs to be driven by a push-pull output. In discrete components for simplicity it is often realized by a pull-down resistor and an active circuit pulling up (or vice versa). But the power saving advantage is lost here - the pull-down consumes power all the time while the FET is turned on (or off). Very roughly speaking a BJT may be considered a FET with a resistor build in:

Probably in typical situation using MOSFET still saves some current but the difference may be negligible - and using the BJT may save one resistor.

There are other advantages in using BJTs:

  1. They are less ESD sensitive than FETs. Modern FETs have often some ESD protection build in but not all of them.
  2. BJTs are "ancient". They are commonly available in both THT and SMD package. Newer FETs are often SMD only. Common FETs available in THT are huge power MOSFETs mostly in bulky TO-220 package with large gate capacitances and high threshold voltages.
  3. BJTs have "unified" base-emitter voltage. It is around 0.6V. Of course it depends on transistor type and base current but in a given circuit replacing a BJT with similar one shouldn't change the V_BE voltage drop by much.

Especially the point 3. is important for me. It is hard to find a FET that conducts with only 0.6V gate voltage. I do not know any available in THT. Also the region between fully closed and fully conducting is much wider and not well described in datasheets.

Maybe it is only my lack of understanding but BJTs seem much easier to use than MOSFETs. If a circuit works well with one BJT, there is a good chance it will work with reasonable similar BJT too. This cannot be said for FETs - with the same gate voltage one is closed while another is fully open.

Since replacing a BJT by a FET is quite straightforward I will use BJTs primarily and switch to a FET only when there is a good reason for doing so.

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