Measurement of V/SUB CE(sat)/ of RF power transistors and of waveform details near V/SUB CE(sat)/

Accurate measurement of V/SUB CE(sat)/ in RF operation and of the waveform details near V/SUB CE(sat)/ requires that the oscilloscope vertical deflection sensitivity be high enough so that the waveform peak value would drive the amplifier far off-scale. With many oscilloscopes, the deflection amplifier does not recover fast enough for the resulting on-screen display to be undistorted. The wideband waveform clipper described allows accurate measurement of V/SUB CE(sat)/ and the waveform details near V/SUB CE(saT)/ without overloading the oscilloscope vertical deflection amplifier.