Thermal characterization of LDMOS transistors for accelerating stress testing

The time to market is a major concern in the high-technology industry and w hen designing new products, the development cycle time becomes critical. In deed, when a delay occurs in the development schedule, the potential market share of the designed product can be drastically decreased. In this contex t, developing accelerated stress testing (AST) in order to assess quickly t he long-term behavior of a semiconductor becomes extremely useful. In this paper we show an example of how thermal characterization including simulati on can be used to define a consistent AST for power ICs. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.