Title :
Measurement of dielectric absorption of capacitors and analysis of its effects on VCOs
Author :
Kuenen, Jeroen C. ; Meijer, Gerard C M
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Electr. Eng., Delft Univ. of Technol., Netherlands
fDate :
2/1/1996 12:00:00 AM
Abstract :
In the integrators applied in A-to-D converters, smart sensors and other processing circuits, the accuracy is directly limited by the performance of the integrating element: the capacitor. An important nonideality of the capacitors concerns the short-term effects of dielectric absorption. This paper presents an accurate method to measure these short-term effects and discusses the measurement results for standard industrial capacitors, MOS and junction capacitors, parasitic capacitors of assembling materials and coaxial-cable capacitors. The special precautions to be taken to obtain the required accuracy for very short measurement times are also discussed. It is shown that the dielectric absorption of a commonly used polycarbonate capacitor causes a nonlinearity of 0.6% for a VCO in the frequency range from 1 kHz to 100 kHz. A very large dielectric-absorption effect has been found for commonly used epoxy printed-circuit boards, which means that special care has to be taken when this material is applied in accurate VCOs
Keywords :
capacitors; dielectric measurement; electron device testing; leakage currents; voltage-controlled oscillators; 1 to 100 kHz; 2 mus to 100 ms; A/D converters; MOS capacitors; VCO; analysis; capacitors; coaxial-cable capacitors; dielectric absorption; epoxy printed-circuit boards; industrial capacitors; integrating element; junction capacitors; nonideality; nonlinearity; open circuit voltage measurement; parasitic capacitors; polycarbonate capacitor; sample and hold circuits; short-term effects; smart sensors; Absorption; Assembly; Coaxial components; Dielectric materials; Dielectric measurements; Integrated circuit measurements; Intelligent sensors; MOS capacitors; Measurement standards; Voltage-controlled oscillators;
Journal_Title :
Instrumentation and Measurement, IEEE Transactions on