Power transistor near-infrared microthermography using an intensified CCD camera and frame integration

Abstract

In this work, a high performance near-infrared thermal microscope designed to characterize the thermal behaviour of a power metal–oxide–silicon field-effect transistor (MOSFET) is presented. This non-destructive method is based on the measurement of the thermal radiation emitted by the power transistor in the spectral domain close to 800 nm using an intensified CCD camera. Although the intensifier unit is developed specially for low-level radiant applications, an image processing technique based on lock-in thermography method is proposed to improve the signal-to-noise ratio. The method allows absolute temperature distribution measurements for both the static and periodic modes at the micron scale. In the periodic mode, the transistor is heated (by the Joule effect) at a frequency fitting the camera acquisition speed. The minimum threshold temperature value and the temperature sensitivity to the emissivity factor are examined. Microthermographic images of the power MOSFET are presented and discussed for several values of drain current. For both static and periodic modes, good results of temperature resolution and spatial resolution have been achieved confirming the interest of short wavelengths for microthermography applications.

Highlighting of Critical Experimental Data for SOFC Modeling That is Missing From the Literature and Potential of N-IR Thermography for SOFC Study

“…The fact that bodies at temperatures above 500 C certainly emit electromagnetic radiation wavelengths in the 0.8 lm to 1.2 lm range, which can be detected by CCD devices [3,27,28] affords CCD N-IR measurements. For example a similar technique used by Dhokkar et al [29] has been used in order to study transistor technology temperature fields in the micro scale. While a measurement as in Ref.…”

Improved method on image detection at low light level using a sinusoidal-shaped-function signal

“…Yang et al [7], Wu et al [8] and Carbillet et al [9] performed research on the principle of how the electron-multiplying chargecoupled device camera greatly enhanced the contrast of the acquired images. Frame-accumulation algorithm [10,11] is also widely used for LLL imaging. Frensch [12] established a system which could improve the impression of a digitized image with a low amplitude resolution.…”

Infrared thermography applied for high-level current density identification over planar microwave circuit sectors

“…Dhokkar et al [5] reported a systematic investigation about the use of a high performance near-infrared thermal microscope to evaluate the thermal behavior of a power metal-oxide-siliconfield-effect transistor. IRT images of the power transistor are presented and discussed for several values of the drain current.…”