Contactless high-speed waveform measurements on GaAs integrated circuits with the photoemission sampling technique

Abstract

After giving brief background information on photoemission testing with emphasis on measurement time, the authors describe progress made in detector design and viewing capability. The usefulness of equipment, using the photoemission sampling technique has been demonstrated through measurements delay and rise times of integrated GaAs MESFET circuits. The switching time of these circuits is around 200 ps, therefore presenting no challenge to the time resolution of the system, which had been substantiated by earlier measurements of electrical pulses with 8-ps rise time. The ability to activate devices within a chip by a pulsed visible light beam is also demonstrated.