JPH09127184A - Thermal characteristic measuring method and measuring device for semiconductor element - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To correctly measure the thermal characteristic of a semiconductor element in a short time and to enable measurement of thermal characteristic similar to that in the mounted state. SOLUTION: The measuring device comprises a driving voltage source 1 and an applied current source 2 for supplying electric power to a transistor 10 which is a semiconductor element, a junction voltage detecting part 3 for detecting the junction voltage of the transistor 10, and a supply power control part 20 for regulating the supply power to the transistor 10 so that the junction voltage detected by the junction voltage detecting part 3 is constant. The supply power control part 3 thus regulates the supply power of the driving voltage source 1 and the applied current source 2 to make the junction voltage detected by the junction voltage detecting part 3 constant, thereby, the virtual junction temperature of the transistor 10 can be kept constant in a short time and thermal characteristic can be measured correctly in a short measuring time. Furthermore, a pulse control part 30 is provided, whereby the applied current source 2 is pulse-controlled to intermittently supply power so as to measure the thermal characteristic similar to that in the mounting state.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for measuring thermal characteristics of semiconductor elements such as transistors.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, in designing a semiconductor device, the relationship between heat generation of a semiconductor element and heat dissipation of a package has been an important issue. Therefore, the measurement of the thermal characteristics of semiconductor devices is one of the important evaluation methods. Hereinafter, a conventional thermal characteristic measuring device for a semiconductor element will be described.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing the structure of a conventional semiconductor element thermal characteristic measuring apparatus. In FIG. 5, 1 is a drive voltage source, 2 is an applied current source, 3 is a junction voltage detection unit, and 10 is a junction voltage detection unit.
Is a transistor as an example of a semiconductor element as a measurement target. In this conventional semiconductor element thermal characteristic measuring apparatus, a driving voltage source 1 is connected to a collector terminal of a transistor 10 to be measured, and an applied current source 2 is connected to an emitter terminal,
The junction voltage detector 3 is connected to the base terminal. Then, in the junction voltage detection unit 3, the base of the transistor 10
It is designed to detect the voltage between the emitters.

A measuring method using the conventional thermal characteristic measuring apparatus for a semiconductor device having the above-mentioned structure will be described below. A constant power is supplied to the transistor 10 by the driving voltage source 1 and the applied current source 2. Then, the junction voltage detector 3 detects the junction voltage between the base and emitter of the transistor 10. The thermal resistance of the semiconductor element such as the transistor 10 is calculated by the drive voltage, the applied current value, and the difference between the junction voltage value before power supply and the junction voltage value that fluctuates due to heat generation of the semiconductor element after power supply.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing the thermal characteristic measurement results when the semiconductor element thermal characteristic measuring apparatus of FIG. 5 is used.
(A), (b), (c) are thermal resistance, supply power,
It is a time chart of joining temperature. If the junction voltage between the collector and the base is V _CB and the collector current is I _C , the collector loss P _C is P _C = V _CB × I _C , and the thermal resistance (R _th ) is the junction due to the collector loss P _C. If the temperature rise is ΔT _j , then R _th = ΔT _j / P _C. When the junction voltage between the base and the emitter is V _BE and the temperature coefficient of the semiconductor element is K, the junction temperature (T _j ) is T _j =
It is represented by V _BE / K. Therefore, V _CB and V _BE are measured.

[0006]

In the above-mentioned conventional thermal characteristic measuring device, when the measuring time exceeds 100 seconds by supplying a predetermined electric power, the heat generation of the semiconductor element is saturated, and accurate thermal measurement is possible. there were. However, the measurement time is 100
In a short time of less than a second, there is a problem that oscillation is likely to occur due to the variation of the junction temperature and accurate thermal characteristics cannot be measured.

Further, since the power supplied when the semiconductor element is mounted in the circuit is intermittently supplied, there is a problem that the conventional thermal characteristic measuring device cannot measure the thermal characteristic in the mounted state. An object of the present invention is to provide a thermal characteristic measuring method and a measuring device for a semiconductor element capable of accurately measuring a thermal characteristic even in a short measuring time, and further to measure a thermal characteristic similar to a mounted state. It is an object of the present invention to provide a method and an apparatus for measuring the thermal characteristics of a semiconductor device that can perform the measurement.

[0008]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a semiconductor element thermal characteristic measuring method, wherein a semiconductor element is supplied with electric power to detect the junction voltage of the semiconductor element and to keep the junction voltage constant. The power supplied to the device is adjusted. In this way, by adjusting the power supply to the semiconductor element to keep the junction voltage constant, it is possible to keep the junction temperature of the semiconductor element constant in a short time and keep it constant. A property measurement can be performed.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a semiconductor element thermal characteristic measuring method according to the first aspect, wherein the semiconductor element thermal characteristic measuring method is characterized in that power is intermittently supplied to the semiconductor element. This makes it possible to measure thermal characteristics similar to those in the mounted state. The thermal characteristic measuring apparatus for a semiconductor element according to claim 3, wherein a power supply section that supplies power to the semiconductor element, a junction voltage detecting section that detects a junction voltage of the semiconductor element, and a junction voltage detected by the junction voltage detecting section. And a supply power control unit that adjusts the power supplied to the semiconductor element of the power supply unit so as to keep constant. In this way, the power supply control unit adjusts the power supplied to the semiconductor element of the power supply unit to keep the junction voltage detected by the junction voltage detection unit constant, so that the junction temperature of the semiconductor element can be reduced in a short time. It is possible to eliminate variations and keep constant, and it is possible to accurately measure thermal characteristics even in a short measurement time.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention, there is provided a semiconductor element thermal characteristic measuring apparatus according to the third aspect, wherein the semiconductor element thermal characteristic measuring apparatus is pulse-controlled so as to intermittently supply electric power to the semiconductor element. It is characterized in that a pulse control unit is provided. In this way, by intermittently supplying power to the semiconductor element, it is possible to measure the thermal characteristics similar to the mounted state.

[0011]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a semiconductor element thermal characteristic measuring apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 1, 1 is a drive voltage source (power supply unit), 2 is an applied current source (power supply unit), 3
Is a junction voltage detection unit that detects the junction voltage between the base and emitter of the transistor 10, 10 is a transistor that is an example of a semiconductor element as a measurement target, and 20 is a constant junction voltage detected by the junction voltage detection unit 3. A power supply control unit that adjusts the power supplied to the transistor 10 of the driving voltage source 1 and the applied current source 2 as described above, and 30 is a pulse control that pulse-controls the power supply unit to intermittently supply the power to the transistor 10. It is a department.

In addition to the configuration shown in FIG. 5, the semiconductor element thermal characteristic measuring apparatus of FIG. 1 has a supply power control section 20 connected to a driving voltage source 1, an applied current source 2 and a junction voltage detecting section 3.
And a pulse control unit 30 connected to the applied current source 2. A measuring method using the thermal characteristic measuring apparatus for a semiconductor element configured as described above will be described below.

First, when a junction temperature setting of 120 ° C. and a measurement time range setting of 0.1 seconds to 100 seconds are input to the supply power control section 20, the supply power control section 20 reads the junction voltage from the junction voltage detection section 3. Then, the supplied power control unit 20 adjusts the supplied power of the driving voltage source 1 and the applied current source 2 so as to keep the junction voltage constant, in other words, keep the junction temperature constant. For example, when the measurement time is 1 second, the supplied power is 100 W, and when the measurement time is 10 seconds, the supplied power is 10 W.
Like W, the supplied power is adjusted according to the change of the junction voltage so that the junction voltage is kept constant.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the thermal characteristic measurement results when the thermal characteristic measuring apparatus for semiconductor elements shown in FIG. 1 is used.
(A), (b), (c) are thermal resistance, supply power,
It is a time chart of joining temperature. As described above, according to this embodiment, in order to keep the junction temperature constant, the supply power is adjusted according to the junction voltage, so that the semiconductor element (transistor (transistor) It is possible to eliminate the variation in the bonding temperature of 10) and keep it constant, and it is possible to perform accurate measurement of the thermal characteristics even in a short measurement time.

Further, when the pulse width is set to 10 μs, the period is set to 30 μs, and the measurement time is set to 0.1 to 100 seconds, the pulse control unit 30 is input to the pulse control unit 30.
During the measurement, the applied current source 2 is controlled to apply the intermittent current having the pulse width of 10 μsec and the period of 30 μsec to the transistor 10 to measure the thermal resistance. Therefore, as shown in FIG. 3, by intermittently supplying electric power,
It is possible to measure the thermal characteristics similar to the mounted state.

In FIG. 1, the pulse control unit 30 is connected to the applied current source 2 for pulse control.
Even if the pulse control unit 30 is connected to the driving voltage source 1 to perform pulse control as shown in FIG. 5, power is intermittently supplied, and thermal characteristics similar to those in the mounted state are measured, as in FIG. be able to. Although the semiconductor element to be measured is the transistor 10 in the above embodiment, the present invention is not limited to this, and another semiconductor element may be the target to be measured.

[0017]

According to the method for measuring the thermal characteristics of a semiconductor element of the present invention, the electric power supplied to the semiconductor element is adjusted to make the junction voltage constant, so that the junction temperature of the semiconductor element can be kept constant in a short time. Therefore, the thermal characteristics can be accurately measured even in a short measurement time. further,
By intermittently supplying electric power to the semiconductor element, it is possible to measure thermal characteristics similar to the mounted state.

Further, in the semiconductor element thermal characteristic measuring apparatus according to the present invention, the supply power control section adjusts the power supplied to the semiconductor element of the power supply section to make the junction voltage detected by the junction voltage detection section constant. By doing so, it is possible to eliminate the variation in the junction temperature of the semiconductor element and keep it constant in a short time, and it is possible to accurately measure the thermal characteristics even in a short measurement time. Furthermore, by providing a pulse control unit and performing pulse control of the power supply unit to intermittently supply power to the semiconductor element, it is possible to measure thermal characteristics similar to the mounted state.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of a semiconductor element thermal characteristic measuring apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing a thermal characteristic measurement result when the thermal characteristic measuring apparatus for a semiconductor element according to the embodiment of the present invention is used.

FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining the operation of the pulse control unit in the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a thermal characteristic measuring apparatus for another semiconductor element according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing a configuration of a conventional semiconductor element thermal characteristic measuring apparatus.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a thermal characteristic measurement result when a conventional semiconductor element thermal characteristic measuring apparatus is used.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Drive Voltage Source (Power Supply Unit) 2 Applied Current Source (Power Supply Unit) 3 Junction Voltage Detection Unit 10 Transistor (Semiconductor Element) 20 Supply Power Control Unit 30 Pulse Control Unit

Front page continuation (72) Inventor Masakazu Nakao 1-1, Saiwaicho, Takatsuki City, Osaka Prefecture Matsushita Electronics Industrial Co., Ltd.

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A method for measuring thermal characteristics of a semiconductor device, which comprises supplying power to a semiconductor device to detect a junction voltage of the semiconductor device and adjusting power supplied to the semiconductor device so as to keep the junction voltage constant. . 2. The method for measuring thermal characteristics of a semiconductor device according to claim 1, wherein power supply to the semiconductor device is intermittently performed. 3. A power supply section for supplying power to a semiconductor element, a junction voltage detection section for detecting a junction voltage of the semiconductor element, and a junction voltage detected by the junction voltage detection section so as to be constant. An apparatus for measuring thermal characteristics of a semiconductor device, comprising: a power supply control unit that adjusts power supplied to the semiconductor device by a power supply unit. 4. The thermal characteristic measuring apparatus for a semiconductor device according to claim 3, further comprising a pulse control unit for controlling the pulse of the power supply unit so as to intermittently supply the power to the semiconductor device.