2
Can Your Present Equipment Solve These Key
Power Device Evaluation Challenges?
Insufficient measurement capability
Power devices require characterization across their entire operating region,
ranging from nano amps or microvolts up to more than one thousand amps and
thousands of volts. In addition, the ability to perform narrow (microsecond range)
pulsed IV measurements is also essential to prevent device self-heating, which
can distort measurement results. Lastly, characterizing the switching speeds of
power devices necessitates some means to characterize gate resistance (Rg),
gate charge (Qg), and junction capacitances at biases of several thousand volts.
These parameters have become extremely important as end-application switching
frequencies have continued to increase. However, traditional measurement
equipment cannot meet all of these requirements.
Verification of power device reliability
Since many power devices are used in harsh environments and mission-critical
applications, they have to be highly reliable. Characterizing performance under a
wide range of operating temperatures as well as near the safe operation area
(SOA) is crucial to meeting reliability targets. Unfortunately, temperature testing is
time-consuming, complex, and prone to oscillation issues caused by long cables
when an external thermal chamber is used. SOA testing typically requires dynamic
testers, which are difficult to use and lack sufficient accuracy.
Issues with novel new device
(SiC, GaN, Ga
2
O
3
, IGBT) characterization
New wide-bandgap materials such as SiC, GaN, and Ga
2
O
3
show great promise
for emerging high-power applications because of their ability to withstand large
voltages and their fast switching speeds. IGBTs are becoming increasingly
important as electronic switches for a variety of applications. Characterization of
large breakdown voltages (up to 10 kV), high currents (hundreds of amps), gate
charge, junction capacitances under high voltage DC biases (up to 3000 V), device
temperature dependency, and the GaN device current collapse effect are
measurement capabilities that are crucial to bringing these new devices to market
as quickly as possible.