Pulse shape discrimination (PSD) with totally depleted transmission type Si surface barrier detector in reverse mount has been investigated to identify fission fragments in the presence of elastic background in heavy ion-induced fission reactions by both numerical simulation and experimental studies. The PSD method is compared with the other conventional methods adopted to identify fission fragments with solid-state detectors such as ∆E–E telescope and single thin ∆E detector and the data for the ¹⁰B+ ²³²Th fission reaction are presented. Results demonstrate the usefulness of a single transmission-type surface barrier detector for the identification of fission fragments and projectiles like heavy ions.