TLP systems with combined 50- and 500-/spl Omega/ impedance probes and Kelvin probes

A Kelvin transmission line pulsing system with optimized oscilloscope ranging

“…The corrected TLP I-V curve consists of pairs of (V DUT , I meas ), where V DUT = V meas -I meas *R parasitic . However, this procedure is unreliable, because the contact resistance is different each time the probes are placed on the bondpad [3]. A better solution is to use Kelvin-type probing [3], [4]; in a Kelvin TLP system, one directly measures the voltage drop across the DUT, thereby excluding any voltage drops across the system parasitic resistances.…”

“…The importance of using adaptive ranging to minimize this error was noted in [3]. Here, we present a general method of oscilloscope ranging to minimize quantization error under the constraints imposed by the scope.…”

“…Task (iii) arises because it may be difficult to formulate an accurate estimate for the measured v 2 , v 3 , and v 4 voltage levels, since these values will depend on the properties of the DUT. To solve this problem, one strategy is to use a small step-size in pre-charge voltage and set the estimated v 2 , v 3 and v 4 equal to the last measured values. If any of these guesses lead to an out-of-range measurement, new F and R settings must be chosen, and the DUT must be pulsed again using the same pre-charge voltage.…”

“…Transmission Line Pulse (TLP) systems produce large amplitude, short duration, rectangular current pulses that are used to characterize devices in the ESD operating regime [1][2][3][4][5]. This is accomplished by charging a length of transmission line, usually coaxial cable, up to a high potential and closing a switch so as to discharge the cable through the device under test (DUT).…”

Multi-terminal pulsed force & sense ESD verification of I/O libraries and ESD simulations

“…1 [3]. In this case two probe needles are used for forcing the pulse current and two additional needle probes for current-free sensing of the voltage drop at the DUT as shown in Fig.…”