With new wide bandgap switching devices enabling significant advances in electric vehicles, solar energy and industrial controls, the Tektronix WBG-DPT solution has been developed to provide automated, repeatable, and accurate measurements on wide bandgap devices such as SiC and GaN MOSFETs.
Designers of next-generation power converters will be able to use the WBG-DPT solution to optimise their designs. With the ability to run on Tektronix 4, 5 and 6 Series MSO oscilloscopes, it is able to integrate seamlessly into the measurement system of the oscilloscopes, the WBG-DPT Solution comes with a number of industry-first measurement capabilities.
These capabilities include an automatic WBG deskew technique, and reverse recovery timing plots, making it easier for engineers to see reverse recovery details for multiple pulses overlaid on a single display. Measurements are also designed to align with JEDEC and IEC standards for double pulse testing and diode reverse recovery.
According to Daryl Ellis, Tektronix Mainstream Portfolio General Manager, “We are confident that the design of the Tektronix WBG-DPT Solution will allow for simplified debugging, repeatable measurements (per JEDEC and IEC standards) and a faster learning curve. Test automation reduces test times and retesting errors, ensuring our customers meet their project timelines and time to market plans.”
“The WBG-DPT software provides instantaneous measurements of key parameters, like EON, EOFF, and QRR when performing double-pulse tests,” said Masashi Nogawa, staff systems engineer at Qorvo. “The software makes the power waveform and markers showing the integration ranges used to calculate the energy losses immediately visible. This is an excellent alternative to exporting waveform data into Excel spreadsheets for processing.”
To achieve meaningful energy loss measurements, designers must correct for delays introduced by test fixtures and probes. The traditional technique for aligning drain-to-source- voltage (VDS) and drain current (ID) measurements requires rewiring the test setup and careful pretest measurements.
The WBG-DPT Solution’s WBG deskew technique eliminates the need for rewiring and may even be performed after double pulse measurements have been taken. To simulate the effects of delays in the test setup, the software generates an alignment waveform. The engineer adjusts a few settings to match the alignment waveform with the measured waveform, as the software corrects any differences in delays. This new process reduces the deskew time to just a few minutes.
Since power converters must operate over a wide range of temperature conditions, there is a growing need to measure output charge (QOSS) at different junction temperatures. As a result, the Tektronix WBG-DPT Solution boasts fast and acurate QOSS measurements, providing important insight into the effects of device output capacitance.
With the Tektronix WBG-DPT Solution, industry-first reverse recovery timing plots make it easy for engineers to see reverse recovery details for multiple pulses overlaid on a single display. Measurements are made per JEDEC and IEC standards, and users can configure measurements in WBG solution to query results on every first or second pulse, or all pulses of a double pulse set. This unique approach allows for multiple double pulse sets and provides visual and measurement results on each set. The measurement provides the ability to easily zoom in on the reverse recovery region and even debug reverse recovery parameters of the system.
