Multiple high-voltage pulse stressing of conventional thick-film resistors

Abstract

In this paper, results from a study of multiple high-voltage pulse (MHVP) stressing effects on resistance and low-frequency noise of thick-film resistors based on resistor compositions with sheet resistances of 1, 10 and 100 kΩ/sq are presented. For experimental purposes, a series of thick-film test resistors with identical geometries were realized and exhibited to two types of tests: multiple series of 10 pulses with increasing amplitudes from the 0.5 to 4.0 kV range and multiple series of 10 pulses with constant 3 kV and 4.5 kV amplitudes. Obtained experimental results were analyzed and correlation between resistance and low-frequency noise changes with resistor degradation due to MHVP stressing was observed. Comparing the resistance and noise index changes it is shown that low-frequency noise parameters are more sensitive to this kind of resistor stressing than resistance. During high-voltage pulse stressing, certain number of resistors failed and progressive resistor degradation that led to catastrophic failure is also presented in this paper.

Introduction

In the production of sensitive and reliable up-to-date communication systems stability and precise resistance values of widely utilized conventional thick-film resistors are of great importance. Different conditions of their application are inducing the need to investigate their behaviour under stress, especially high-voltage pulse stress. Several papers dealt with physically different problem – behavioural analysis of low-ohmic thick-film resistors, the so-called thick-film surge resistors, which are being used in telecom systems as protection under extreme working conditions [1], [2], but little attention has been paid to performances of conventional thick-film resistors used in telecom applications subjected to high-voltage pulse stressing [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], especially related to degradation phenomena. Since there is a general interest in noise measurements as means of thick resistive film quality evaluation [8], [9], in one of our previous papers [10] we have presented results from the study of high-voltage pulse stressing effects on resistance and low-frequency noise of conventional thick-film resistors using test samples with different sheet resistances and different geometries. In this paper, the results of investigation of performances of thick-film resistors after multiple high-voltage pulse (MHVP) stressing, using resistance measurements as well as measurements of low-frequency noise parameters – current noise spectrum and noise index, are presented. Experiments – materials, test resistors and terms of MHVP stressing and measurements, are described in Section 2. Experimental results and discussion are given in Section 3. Also, during the performed experiment certain number of test resistors failed and, in Section 3, observed progressive resistor degradations due to high-voltage pulse stressing that led to catastrophic failure are described.