A dual-source nonlinear measurement system oriented to the empirical characterization of low-frequency dispersion in microwave electron devices

When dealing with microwave electron device modeling, robust device characterization typically involves measurement systems which enable the device to be characterized under actual operations, that means under high-frequency nonlinear regime. Nevertheless, high-frequency large-signal measurement systems are very expensive, have limited frequency, and, moreover, when the identification of a nonlinear model is the measurement purpose, reactive parasitic elements tend to hide the most important nonlinearity source: the “intrinsic drain current source”. In order to overcome these problems, an alternative nonlinear measurement setup based on large-signal sinusoidal excitation at low-frequency (e.g., a few megahertz) is here proposed to characterize the intrinsic electron device behavior. Different experimental examples, carried out on both field-effect and bipolar transistors, are here provided in order to clearly demonstrate the capabilities of the proposed electron-device characterization technique.