Issues in Testing Advanced Power Semiconductor Devices

Thermal transient testing is a widely used tool in reliability testing of power semiconductors and structure integrity analysis of packages, cooling mounts etc. The paper demonstrates novel concepts for powering and sensing in thermal tests when wide bandgap compound semiconductor components (GaN, SiC) replace the traditional silicon. The major problems treated are the non-linearity of device parameters in broad temperature ranges and the slow effects (surface charge, carrier absorption on traps) which produce false transient signals in the time range where most information on the device structure can be obtained. We demonstrate that using the RDSON channel resistance or some parasitic effects of the bulk and gate region these obstacles can be overcome.