Agilent | What Are the CV Measurement Capabilities of the 4140B, 4280A, and 4284A?

What Are the CV Measurement Capabilities of the 4140B, 4280A, and 4284A?

Question:

What are the CV measurement capabilities of the 4140B, 4280A, and 4284A?

Answer:

For general CV measurements, the 4284A is the best choice. The 4284A has multi-frequency CV measurement capability (from 20 Hz to 1 MHz), which is virtually required for CV measurements on modern CMOS devices. Moreover, the E5250A Low Leakage Switch Mainframe has built-in routines to compensate for the cabling on the 4284A. However, there are a couple of special situations where the 4140B and 4280A can prove useful.

For quasi-static CV measurements, the 4140B is the best choice due to its true analog sweep capability.

For deep level transient spectroscopy (DLTS), the 4280A is the best choice due to its support for pulsed sweeps. Also, the 4280A is the only instrument that supports C-t measurements (capacitance measured over regular time intervals).

The table below summarizes these capabilities:

	4140B	4280Av	4284A
Quasi-Static CV	Yes	No	No
Deep Level Transient Spectroscopy (DLTS)	No	Yes	No
C-t Measurement	No	Yes	No
1 MHz CV Measurement	No	Yes	Yes
Multi-Frequency CV Measurement	No	No	Yes
Cable Compensation Routines for E5250A	No	No	Yes