Pulsed Power Burnout Testing of Microwave Diodes

This paper describes pulsed power burnout tests of microwave diodes employed in spacecraft RF circuits. Pulsed power burnout characterization data are provided for step recovery diodes (SRDs), Schottky barrier diodes, Schottky detector diodes, high voltage Schottky barrier diodes, and low offset Schottky diodes. Microwave diodes were tested for the following reasons. 1. As a class, they were believed to be among the most sensitive to burnout. 2. Little part burnout data were available. The test results partially validated our hypothesis concerning the sensitivity of these parts to 20 ns to 1,000 ns pulsed power burnout. Some parts required less than 30 nJ to burn out; other types required greater than 100 microjoules. While the reverse bias burnout energy was typically lower than that for forward bias, this was not universally true for all part types. The test data are inconclusive for the PIN diodes. There appeared to be a voltage dependent failure condition for some of the PIN diodes. Additional testing is required to complete our understanding of the PIN diode failure mechanism.