Automation Of An l–V Characterization System

J. R. Noriega*¹, A. Vera–Marquina², C. Acosta Enríquez³

^1,2,3 Departamento de Investigación en Física, Universidad de Sonora Rosales y Blvd. Luis Encinas, Col. Centro, Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico *E–mail: bnoriega@cajerne.cifus.uson.rnx

ABSTRACT

In this paper, an accurate I–V virtual instrument (VI) that has been developed to characterize electronic devices for research and teaching purposes is demonstrated. The virtual instrument can be used to highlight principles of measurement, instrumentation, fundamental principles of electronics, VI programming, device testing and characterization in wafer or discrete device level. It consists of a Keithley electrometer, model 6514, a programmable power supply BK Precision, model 1770, a Keithley source meter, model 2400–LV, an Agilent digital multimeter, model 34401, a PC computer and LabVIEW software. The instruments are interconnected using an IEEE 488 protocol. The characteristic VI devices graphs are generated from measured data previous computational processing. The instrument is used in basic courses of physical electronics as well as in advance curses of VLSI design and in research work for characterization of semiconductor materials and devices. This paper describes the VI instrument design, implementation and characterization experiments.

Keywords: Electronic equipment, FETs, Transistor, Electronics engineering.

RESUMEN

En este trabajo se presenta la automatización de un instrumento I–V desarrollado para la caracterización de dispositivos electrónicos en aplicaciones tanto en docencia como en investigación. Este instrumento virtual puede ser usado para ilustrar los principios de la medición, instrumentación, fundamentos de la electrónica, programación, pruebas eléctricas de dispositivos semiconductores y caracterización de dispositivos discretos en substrato. Consiste de un electrómetro Keithley, modelo 6514, una fuente de voltaje programable BK Precision modelo 1770, medidor Keithley modelo 2400–LV, un multímetro digital Agilent modelo 34401 y una computadora PC con software LabVIEW. Los instrumentos son interconectados usando el protocolo IEEE 488. Las curvas características de los dispositivos son graficadas a partir de los datos medidos y previo procesamiento computacional. Este instrumento se usa en cursos de física electrónica y en cursos avanzados de diseño VLSI y en la caracterización de materiales semiconductores y dispositivos. Este artículo describe el diseño del instrumento, implementación y experimentos de caracterización.

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Acknowledgments

Authors are most thankful to SEP (Mexico's National Council for Education) for partial support of this work trough project PIFI 2007. Technical help from Fernando Noriega and Isidro Granillo is also appreciated.