Hi guys
Thoroughly enjoyed this very informative thread.
Here are a couple of thoughts I've had. In my professional career, I spent most of my time in development labs, working directly and in parallel with lots of very clever EEs. They, invariably, like me, tended to include a small gate resistor. This thread has got me thinking as to where the gate resistor requirement came from.
Very many of you will never have come across the situation where it was obligatory to attach heat shunts to the legs of transistors, before applying a soldering iron. Yes, when transistors first started to appear in commercial devices, this is what we had to do. Ever hear of the expression "the fastest fuse on three legs"? This is what transistors were commonly called, as they would die, just by looking at them the wrong way. We used to joke that they were only there to protect the main fuse.
In these sort of scenarios, if I was a design engineer, I would use each and every form of insurance I could incorporate. Don't forget that the development of transistors took quite a few years before one could (almost) guarantee many of the stated characteristics and parameters required for the design.
As FETs have always been the 'delicate' flower compared to BJT, due to potential for static damage, I suspect that the need for a gate resistor, might be a "folk memory", passed down by 'generations' of old farts like me, who have never had any need or reason to doubt the accepted wisdom.
Thanks for a great, educational read.
Fof