A new drain-current injection technique for the measurement of off-state breakdown voltage in FETs

Author

Bahl, Sandeep R. ; Del Alamo, Jesus A.

Author_Institution

MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA

Volume

40

Issue

8

fYear

1993

fDate

8/1/1993 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1558

Lastpage

1560

Abstract

A simple three-terminal technique for measuring the off-state breakdown voltage of FETs is presented. With the source grounded, current is injected into the drain of the on-state device. The gate is then ramped down to shut the device off. In this process, the drain-source voltage rises to a peak and then drops. This peak represents an unambiguous definition of three-terminal breakdown voltage. In the same scan, a measurement of the two-terminal gate-drain breakdown voltage is also obtained. The method offers potential for use in a manufacturing environment, as it is fully automatable. It also enables easy measurement of breakdown voltage in unstable and fragile devices

Keywords

electric breakdown of solids; field effect transistors; semiconductor device testing; drain-current injection technique; drain-source voltage; fragile devices; manufacturing environment; off-state breakdown voltage; three-terminal technique; two-terminal gate-drain breakdown voltage; Conductivity; Contacts; Crystals; Electron devices; FETs; Gold; Impurities; Leakage current; P-n junctions; Transistors;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electron Devices, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9383

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/16.223723

Filename

223723