Keysight Enables Dynamic Testing for Wide-Bandgap Chips

IntentTech Insights Staff Writer |
March, 2025

Keysight Technologies, Inc. has enhanced its double-pulse test portfolio enabling customers to benefit from accurate and easy measurement of the dynamic characteristics of Wide-Bandgap (WBG) power semiconductor bare chips. The technologies implemented in the measurement fixture minimize parasitics and do not require soldering to the bare chip. The fixtures are compatible with both versions of Keysight’s double pulse testers.

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WBG power semiconductor devices are crucial for building highly efficient and robust power electronics for applications such as electric vehicles, alternative energies and data centers. They are used in various forms, such as discrete packaged devices or power modules containing power semiconductor bare chips. Characterizing the bare chip before packaging expedites development. However, measuring the dynamic characteristics of a power semiconductor bare chip by traditional methods requires soldering directly onto the bare chip before tests can be performed. This is not only difficult, but it can introduce parasitics that will introduce errors into the measurements.

The new Keysight bare chip dynamic measurement solution helps power semiconductor device engineers and power electronics engineers perform dynamic characterization as soon as a chip is diced from a wafer. The innovative design of the fixture allows quick accommodation of bare chips and provides sufficient electrical contact while preventing a small and fragile bare chip from arcing or being damaged. The unique fixture structure, which doesn’t use probing, wire bonding, or soldering, minimizes parasitics in the test circuit and produces clean measurement waveforms for fast-operating WBG power semiconductor devices.

Thomas Goetzl, Vice President and General Manager for Keysight Automotive & Energy Solutions, said: “With the introduction of the new WBG semiconductor bare chip evaluation method, we are helping the industry expedite the development of highly efficient and robust power semiconductor discrete devices and power modules. Bare chip dynamic characterization, once regarded as almost impossible to do, is now possible with the extension to our power semiconductor test portfolio.”