Keysight Technologies has improved its double-pulse test portfolio, making it easier and more accurate for customers to measure the dynamic characteristics of wide-bandgap (WBG) power semiconductor bare chips. The measurement fixture uses technologies that minimize parasitic effects and eliminate the need to solder the bare chip. These fixtures are compatible with both versions of Keysight‘s double-pulse testers.
WBG power semiconductor devices play a key role in developing highly efficient and reliable power electronics for applications like electric vehicles, renewable energy and data centers. These devices come in various forms, including discrete packaged components and power modules that contain bare semiconductor chips. Characterizing the bare chip before packaging helps speed up the development process. However, traditional methods for measuring the dynamic characteristics of a bare power semiconductor chip require soldering directly onto the chip before testing. This approach is not only challenging but can also introduce parasitic effects that lead to inaccurate measurements.
Keysight’s new bare chip dynamic measurement solution enables power semiconductor and power electronics engineers to perform dynamic characterization immediately after a chip is diced from a wafer. The fixture’s design facilitates quick and secure placement of bare chips, ensuring reliable electrical contact while protecting the small, fragile chips from arcing or damage. Its unique structure – eliminating the need for probing, wire bonding or soldering – minimizes parasitics in the test circuit, resulting in clean measurement waveforms for fast-switching WBG power semiconductor devices.
Thomas Goetzl, VP and GM automotive and energy solutions at Keysight, said, “With the introduction of the new WBG semiconductor bare chip evaluation method, we are helping the industry expedite the development of highly efficient and robust power semiconductor discrete devices and power modules. Bare chip dynamic characterization, once regarded as almost impossible to do, is now possible with the extension to our power semiconductor test portfolio.”
