title: A 500 A device characterizer utilizing a pulsed-linear amplifier.
abstract: With the advent of modern power semiconductor switching elements, the envelope defining "high power" is an ever increasing quantity. Characterization of these semiconductor power devices generally falls into two categories: switching, or transient characteristics, and static, or DC characteristics. With the increasing native voltage and current levels that modern power devices are capable of handling, characterization equipment meant to extract quasi-static IV curves has not kept pace, often leaving researchers with no other option than to construct ad hoc curve tracers from disparate pieces of equipment. In this paper, a dedicated 10 V, 500 A curve tracer was designed and constructed for use with state of the art high power semiconductor switching and control elements. The characterizer is a physically small, pulsed power system at the heart of which is a relatively high power linear amplifier operating in a switched manner in order to deliver well defined square voltage pulses. These actively shaped pulses are used to obtain device's quasi-static DC characteristics accurately without causing any damage to the device tested. Voltage and current waveforms from each pulse are recorded simultaneously by two separate high-speed analog to digital converters and averaged over a specified interval to obtain points in the reconstructed IV graph.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering, Texas Tech University, 1012 Boston Ave., Lubbock, Texas 79409, USA.
authors.forename: Shelby
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lacouture
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical Engineering, Texas Tech University, 1012 Boston Ave., Lubbock, Texas 79409, USA.
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bayne