A NEW DRAIN-CURRENT INJECTION TECHNIQUE FOR THE MEASUREMENT OF OFF-STATE BREAKDOWN VOLTAGE IN FETS

We present a new simple three-terminal technique to measure the off-state breakdown voltage of FET's. With the source grounded, current is injected into the drain of the on-state device. The gate is then ramped down to shut the device off. In this process, the drain-source voltage rises to a peak and then drops. This peak represents an unambiguous definition of three-terminal breakdown voltage. In the same scan, we additionally obtain a measurement of the two-terminal gate-drain breakdown voltage. The proposed method offers potential for use in a manufacturing environment, as it is fully automatable. It also enables easy measurement of breakdown voltage in unstable and fragile devices.