Embedded system based on microcontroller for generating I-V curves of electronic devices

A key parameter in the analysis of electronic devices behavior is their current-voltage curve, also known as characteristic curve. This information allows the designer to select the type of components required for a given application in order to obtain an optimal system performance. This paper presents a low-cost and low-power consumption embedded system able to accurately generate the characteristic curve of electronic devices. Microcontroller PIC18F4550 effectively handles different serial communication protocols to exchange data between a Java application running on a computer and different peripheral devices. The firmware within the microcontroller receives data from the Java interface and executes an algorithm to send a series of analog voltages to the element being characterized and it also measures the resultant current for each voltage; then, the pair of data points is sent back to the Java application to build the plot. The resultant data can be exported to a spreadsheet to be further analyzed. We characterized different electronic devices to evaluate the performance of the prototype. Successful repeatability tests and validation of theoretical models with experimental data indicated that the embedded system developed is accurate and reliable.