AM3200 Pulse IV

Problems Solved with the High-End AM3200 System

Problems Solved with the High-End AM3200 System

The AM3200 system can generate and measure both very short pulses, down to 200 ns, and long pulse widths above the millisecond range.

On the drain pad of the transistor, voltage and current pulses can be applied while maintaining accurate measurements across different operating conditions. This makes it possible to capture both low current levels at high voltages and high current levels at low voltages without compromising data accuracy.

This is important because the knowledge of leakage currents and resistive characteristics in the ohmic area, such as RDS(on), is crucial for extracting a reliable compact model under good conditions.

Beyond its ability to measure very short pulses, the AM3200 also supports pulse profiling on long pulse shapes.

This is an asset to characterize the temporal drift of component performance over time, caused by self-heating, trapping and de-trapping effects.

This is particularly relevant for GaN technologies, where dynamic effects such as current collapse and dynamic ON-resistance shifts only appear under pulsed RF-like excitation and remain invisible in a static DC sweep.

Capturing these effects accurately is what makes the difference between a model that fits a datasheet and one that fits the device’s actual RF behavior.

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Main Features

• Unbreakable pulsers (thermal, SOA and DUT breakdown protections)
• Included optimized power supplies allow unrivaled fast IV plotting
• Pulsed or  DC operation, pulse width down to 200ns
• Long pulse time domain measurement capabilities
• Internal or external synchronization
• Interlock function disables pulsers within 1µs
• High System flexibility (later upgrade possible)
• 1 gate and 1 drain pulser
• 2 gate pulsers
• 3 and 4 pulser systems

System description

This Pulse IV system is used to bias transistors in quasi-isothermal conditions, it enables accurate compact modeling activities.

Pulser Safe Operating Area

Emergency stop when the operating point exceeds design limits: Ip, Irms, Idc (pulsed, RMS and DC current), Vdc (pulser input voltage, drain pulser only), Pmax (DC power), Fmax (switching frequency), Temperature.

Current Breaker

Programmable thresholds: pulse current and power, quiescent current and power, transient current

Measurement Sampling Time

Fully programmable, 20ns resolution, External synchronization Mtrig & Rfpulse

Modularity

The standard system works with two pulse generators and one control box. External signals permit to combine and synchronize several control boxes (4, 6, 8…).