Agilent B1505A Power Device An

Introduction
Power devices play an important
role in our modern world. They are
used in a wide variety of applications
from home electronics to industrial
equipment, including such familiar
items as TVs, refrigerators, PCs,
FAXs, air conditioners, industrial
robots, and electric vehicles. Stricter
energy efficiency requirements are
driving not only changes in electrical
and electronics circuit design but
also improvements to power devices
such as power MOSFETs and IGBTs
(Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistor).
Specifically, it is desirable for power
transistors to have lower power loss
in their on-state and to possess a
higher breakdown voltage in their
off-state. The Agilent B1505A Power
Device Analyzer/Curve Tracer excels
at evaluating and characterizing these
types of power device properties.
The B1505A’s HVSMU (High Voltage
Source Monitor Unit) covers up to
3000 V and the B1505A’s HCSMU
(High Current Source Monitor Unit)
outputs and measures up to 20 A.
In addition, these modules can also
perform very accurate current-voltage
(IV) measurements in their high volt-
age and high current ranges. Agilent
EasyEXPERT software also provides
an easy-to-use user interface for
both instrument control and data
management and analysis. For all of
these reasons, the B1505A is the best
choice to evaluate and analyze mod-
ern state-of-the-art power devices.
This application note describes how
you can combine the outputs from
two HCSMUs together using optional
adapters to expand the current range
up to 40 A. EasyEXPERT software
fully supports the adapters and
allows you to treat the two HCSMUs
as a single 40 A unit. The expanded
40 A current range improves the
utility of the B1505A by allowing it
to test more state-of-the-art, low
power-loss transistors used in many
consumer electronic products. In
addition to showing how to combine
two HCSMUs together to achieve 40
A, this application note also shows
actual characterization examples of
power MOSFETs.