Development of a RF waveform stress test procedure for GaN HFETs subjected to infinite VSWR sweeps

An RF waveform stress test has been developed in order to assess device degradation caused by the infinite VSWR conditions that could result from the removal of a protection isolator. The proposed stress test involves both DC and RF characterization of a device, before and after an RF stressing mechanism is applied. The procedure was first applied with the device being stressed whilst driving into its optimum impedance and secondly with the device being stressed by one of the three potential failure regions that result from an infinite VSWR sweep.

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