PSMN0R9-25YLC MOSFET Heating Up at 5A Load with Arduino PWM Gate Drive

Good day friends~

 

I am currently involving in a project using PSMN0R9-25YLC which is an N-channel MOSFET to drive a load as the above picture shown:

The Arduino is providing a PWM signal with a voltage from 4.2V-2.5V depending on the charge of the battery and driving the gate at 490Hz. The voltage between the drain and the source also reflects the voltages above as well. I'm also pulling about 5 Amps at any given time.

 

After about 30 seconds of use the MOSFET is extremely hot to the touch and I can actually hear it switching the load. Looking at the specs of the MOSFET I believe it should be able to handle this no problem, so what could be wrong?

Anyone can help me? I'll appreciate it if you could give me some help.

Maybe your not giving it enough gate voltage for it to turn on completely. I tried looking at the link you shared above, i can't open its datasheet. What is the load you are using here?

You have to deal with static and dynamic switching losses, and from that work out the power dissipation, and hence heat-sinking.
You don''t specify the two resistor values. Picking up on Kevin's comment, you must make sure that you have enough enhancement voltage, AND that the current drive to the gate is adequate to handle the switching transition, which has to be fast. This implies that the series gate resistor must be quite small. An Arduino IO pin will not provide sufficient current in all likelihood to drive the gate adequately. In that case the device could be oscillating at a high frequency during the gate transition, and the power dissipation will be higher than expected.
If you don't have a scope, it may prove difficult to sort the problem out.
If you go to the NXP web site, they will have application notes on the subject,
cheers,
Richard

Continuing the theme of the previous 2 posters, your schematic also shows a resistive divider to the gate, so that the 4.2 2.5V output is even less at the gate. The data sheet claims this is optimised as 4.5V device And the series resistor (to the processor) will slow down the signal to the gate as a result of the gate capacitance.

And what sort of heatsinking do you have on your board?

At 490Hz switching frequency, it is not surprising that you can hear it.

Sambath kumar kelvin and  Rechard Garbige is correct.The reasons may be,1 .In sufficent gate voltage     2. arduino IO insufficent to drive the mos gate ,  switch a relay using arduino out feed the required gate voltage through the rly contacts.  3.check for any short on the load side.4.what is the actual  required load current  , the mosfet load current should be set 30 % more than the actual required load current ie 20%more and 10% for other losses for more safety. Provide proper heat sink for the mosfet.5. Providing more gate voltage than the spec can damage the mosfet ., so better to provide a pot and vary the voltage and find out the excat resitance required then replace the pot and provide a fixed resistor in the gate of the mosfet.