Short-Circuit Protection with a MOSFET

If you have an application in which a MOSFET is already used to switch a load, it is relatively easy to add short-circuit or overload protection. Here we make use of the internal resistance RDS(ON), which produces a voltage drop that depends on the amount of current flowing through the MOSFET. The voltage across the internal resistance can be sensed using simple comparator or even a transistor, which switches on at a voltage of around 0.5 V. You can thus avoid the use of a sense resistor (shunt), which usually produces an undesirable extra voltage drop.