Due to self-heating and significant temperature rise in a power device junction, the device characterization through the DC measurement is a major issue. Short pulsed technique or Pulsed I-V (PIV) characterization is the technique which is used by commercial curve tracer and network analyzers to characterize the power devices. Although, this technique prevent excessive self-heating but doesn't guarantee that measurement will be operated in the desired accuracy range because even a moderate self heating may cause significant measurement error. In this research work, a measurement technique is introduced that results "device characterization within the desired accuracy range". The technique is based on the stimulation of the device under test (DUT) with voltage ramps that allow for "fast transient mesurement". Because, this way of stimulation excites the parasitic impedances in the DUT, a dynamic model of the DUT is presented. This model allows determining the operation conditions that "guarantee the specified measurement accuracy". The measurement procedure is described and the developed measurement algorithms are implemented in LabVIEW environment to obtain a "PC-based device characterization curve tracer for high power application".
A high current power MOSFET is used as the DUT. The calibration and measurement phases are carried out by the developed curve tracer. During the calibration phase, the measurement condition including allowed junction temperature deviation, maximum ramp slope and maximum allowed drain-source voltage to "guarantee 2% measurement error" is specified. The measurement phase is carried out based on these operating conditions. The result is a family of output I-V curves for different gate voltage set. This measurement technique "validated" with that of measured based on the PIV characterization technique from the device data sheet. The discrepancy between the measurement result and datasheet curve is discussed.
Development Of A Device Characterization Curve Tracer for High Power Application
