Electronic – High Side P Mosfet Circuit

Knowing the voltage being switched and max current would greatly improve available answer quality.

The MOSFETS below give examples of devices which would meet your need at low voltage (say 10-20V) at currents higher than you'd be switching in most cases.

The basic circuit does not need to be modified - use it as is with a suitable FET - as below.

In the steady state on mode the "problem" is easily addressed.

• A given MOSFET will have a well defined on resistance at a given gate drive voltage. This resistance will change with temperature, but usually by less than 2:1.

• For a given MOSFET you can usually decrease on resistance by increasing gate drive voltage, up to the maximum allowed for the MOSFET.

• For a given load current and gate drive voltage you can choose the MOSFET with the lowest on state resistance that you can afford.

• You can get MOSFETS with Rdson in the 5 to 50 milliohm range at currents of up to say 10A at reasonable cost. You can get similar at up to say 50A at increasing cost.

Examples:

In the absence of good information I'll make some assumptions. These can be improved by providing actual data.

Assume 12V to be switched at 10A. Power = V x I = 120 Watts.
With an Rdson hot of 50 milliohms the power dissipation in the MOSFET will be I^2 x R = 10^2 x 0.05 = 5 Watts = 5/120 or about 4% of the load power.
You would need a heatsink on almost any package.
At 5 milliohms Rdson hot dissipation would be 0.5 Watts. and 0.4% of load power.
A TO220 in still air would handle that OK.
A DPak / TO252 SMD with minimal PCB copper would handle that OK.

As an example of an SMD MOSFET that would work well.
2.6 milliohms Rdson best case. Say about 5 milliohms in practice. 30V, 60A rated. $1 in volume. Probably a few $ in 1's. You would not ever use the 60A - that's a package limit.
At 10A that's 500 mW dissipation, as above.
Thermal data is a little uncertain but it sounds like 54 C/Watt junction to ambient on a 1" x 1" FR4 PCB steady state.
So about 0.5W x 54 C/W = 27C rise. Say 30C. In an enclosure you'll get a junction temperature of maybe 70-80 degrees. Even in Death Valley in midsummer it should be OK. [Warning: DO NOT shut the door on the toilet at Zabriski Point in mid summer !!!!][Even if you are a woman and the Hell's Angels or similar have just arrived][My wife will tell you about it][But your MOSFET would be OK.]

Datasheet AN821 appended to datasheet - Excellent paper on SO8 thermal issues

For $1.77/1 you get a rather nice TO263 / DPak device.
Datasheet via here includes a mini NDA! Limited by NDA - read it yourself.
30v, 90A, 62 K/W with minimal copper and 40 k/W with a whisper. This is an awesome MOSFET in this type of application.
Under 5 milliohms achievable at many 10's of amps. If you could access the actual die you could possibly start a small car with this as the starter motor switch (spec'd to 360A on graphs) BUT the bondwires are rated at 90A. ie the MOSFET inside greatly exceeds the package capability.
At say 30A power = I^2 x R = 30^2 x 0.003 = 2.7W.
0.003 ohms seems fair after looking at the data sheet.

The reason the FET turns off so slowly is because you only have 2 kΩ pulling it high. Take a look at the datasheet for that FET. It should show you the actual and effective gate capacitance when switching. The relatively weak 2 kΩ pullup is working against that capacitance.

Here is a trick I sometimes use in this situation:

The double emitter follower is basically a impedance buffer. The current to charge and discharge the gate capacitance is handled by Q1 and Q2, so the signal at GATE can be much higher impedance and still switch the FET quickly. Note that this double emitter follower will loose 700 mV or so on each end. That is fine for a FET that switches over a 10 V gate range. It will still be "off" with 700 mV on the gate just as well as with 0. At the other end, its usually easy enough to drive GATE the extra 700 mV further than what you want to make sure shows up on the gate of Q3.