B1500A Semiconductor Device Analyzer

A single-box solution that covers all of your device characterizations needs

The B1500A Semiconductor Device Analyzer integrates multiple measurement and analysis capabilities for accurate and quick device characterization into a single instrument. It is the only parameter analyzer with the versatility to provide a wide range of device characterization capabilities, uncompromised measurement reliability, and repeatability.

It supports all aspects of measurement, from fundamental current-voltage (IV) and capacitance-voltage (CV) characterization up to state-of-the-art fast pulsed IV testing. In addition, the B1500A’s ten-slot modular architecture allows you to add or upgrade measurement modules if your measurement needs to change over time.

Keysight Technologies, Inc. EasyEXPERT group+, resident GUI-based software running on the B1500A’s embedded Windows 10 platform, supports efficient and repeatable device characterization. Furnished with hundreds of ready-to-use measurements (application tests), the B1500A provides an intuitive and powerful environment for test execution and analysis. It facilitates the accurate and fast electrical characterization and evaluation of devices, materials, semiconductors, active/passive components, or virtually any other type of electronic device.

EasyEXPERT group+ makes device characterization as easy as 1, 2, 3.

The B1500A’s EasyEXPERT group+ software includes over 300 ready-to-use application tests, allowing you to measure in three easy steps.

The application test libraries furnished with the B1500A’s EasyEXPERT group+ software can help you accelerate the characterization of semiconductor devices and electronic materials, active/passive components, and many other types of electronic devices. Examples of available application tests are shown in the table to the below.

B1500A SMUs provide easy and accurate IV measurement

A source/monitor unit (SMU) integrates all the resources necessary for IV measurement into a compact module. These include a current source, a voltage source, a current meter, and a voltage meter, along with the ability to switch easily between these resources. The tight integration of these capabilities enables B1500A SMU performance to achieve sub pA current measurement resolution. In addition, SMUs have internal feedback mechanisms that enable them to maintain accurate and stable output and a compliance (limit) feature that protects devices from damage due to excessive voltage or current. All B1500A SMUs also support triaxial connections with active guarding for low current measurement, 4-wire (Kelvin) force and sense connections for low resistance measurement, and full 4-quadrant operation.

Multiple functions enhance SMU capabilities

The B1500A SMUs have a variety of versatile measurement capabilities. They can make basic single-point spot measurements and perform sweep measurements of up to 10,001 points. They can also produce voltage and current pulses as narrow as 50 μs and measure quantities over time every 100 μs. In addition, the B1500A SMUs can source and measure voltages and currents of up to 200 V and 1 A, and they can measure voltages and currents with resolutions down to 0.5 μV and 0.1 fA. Other advanced features, such as fast auto-ranging and large capacitive load stabilization, further help to improve performance. The B1500A supports many SMUs, making it easy to mix and match SMU types to meet a wide range of testing needs. The B1500A’s SMUs can meet virtually every device and material testing requirement.

Impressive 0.1 fA measurement combined with seamless IV-CV switching capability

The B1500A’s MPSMU and HRSMU provide an innate measurement resolution of 10 fA and 1 fA (respectively). However, if you need more low current performance, then you can achieve 0.1 fA measurement resolution by combining either of them with the atto-sense and switch unit (ASU). The ASU provides the additional benefit of enabling users to switch between SMU measurements and measurements made through an available BNC input. The ASU’s BNC input can be used with the B1500A’s MFCMU module for low-cost CV-IV switching (2 SMUs with ASUs required), and it can also be used with other external instruments.

Measure C-V, C-f, and C-t from 1 kHz to 5 MHz

The B1500A supports a multi-frequency capacitance measurement unit (MFCMU). The MFCMU can perform all of the capacitance measurements necessary for semiconductor device evaluation, including capacitance vs. voltage (C-V), capacitance vs. frequency (C-f), and capacitance vs. time (C-t). The MFCMU can measure across a wide frequency range (1 kHz to 5 MHz) with a minimum 1 mHz resolution. The MFCMU can also provide up to 25 V of DC measurement bias.

Accurate quasi-static CV (QSCV) measurement with leakage compensation

Characterizing the quasi-static CV (QSCV) response of a MOSFET is crucial to understanding its behavior in the important inversion region since high-frequency CV (HFCV) measurements cannot supply this information. The B1500A supports a QSCV measurement function that works with its HPSMUs, MPSMUs, and HRSMUs, and does not require any additional hardware. The QSCV function can compensate for gate leakage currents and perform an offset calibration to remove parasitic capacitances from the measurement.

Switch seamlessly between accurate CV and IV measurements

Since CV and IV measurements use different cabling, manually switching between these measurements can be annoying and time-consuming. To solve this, the B1500A supports an optional SMU CMU unify unit (SCUU) and guard switch unit (GSWU) that supports seamless switching between CV and IV measurements without sacrificing performance. Although optional, by shorting the guards together during capacitance measurements, the GSWU stabilizes the cable inductance and improves capacitance measurement accuracy. The SCUU also has a built-in bias-T that allows the connected SMUs to be used as bias sources for the MFCMU, thereby allowing capacitance measurements with up to 100 V of DC bias. These capabilities allow you to quickly perform both HFCV and QSCV measurements with just one instrument.

A wide range of pulsed measurement solutions

Pulsed measurements play an increasingly important role in device characterization. While the reasons for this are complex, the twin factors of new device physics issues arising from decreasing device sizes and incorporating more exotic materials into device fabrication are the main forces driving this trend. To meet these challenges, the B1500A offers a wide range of pulsed measurement solutions across both its SMU and dedicated pulse generator module options. These choices provide maximum flexibility to select a B1500A configuration with both the capability to meet your pulsed current measurement needs as well as the ability to upgrade in the future if your test needs to change.

MCSMU supports 50 μs pulsing and higher instantaneous power

The 50 μs pulse medium current SMU (MCSMU) is a specialized SMU designed for faster-pulsed IV measurement. In pulsed mode, it can output higher instantaneous power than the HPSMU (1 A @ 30 V), and it can create current or voltage pulses down to a width of 50 μs (10 times narrower than the HPSMU, MPSMU, or HRSMU). In addition, the MCSMU supports the EasyEXPERT group+ oscilloscope view that allows monitoring of multiple voltages and current waveforms (minimum 2 μs sampling rate) right on the B1500A front panel. This feature makes it extremely easy to optimize pulsed measurement timings and produce valid Id-Vg and Id-Vd curves.