An FPGA-based system for generalised electron devices testing

Electronic systems are becoming more and more ubiquitous as our world digitises. Simultaneously, even basic components are experiencing a wave of improvements with new transistors, memristors, voltage/current references, data converters, etc, being designed every year by hundreds of R D groups world-wide. To date, the workhorse for testing all these designs has been a suite of lab instruments including oscilloscopes and signal generators, to mention the most popular. However, as components become more complex and pin numbers soar, the need for more parallel and versatile testing tools also becomes more pressing. In this work, we describe and benchmark an FPGA system developed that addresses this need. This general purpose testing system features a 64-channel source-meter unit, and 2× banks of 32 digital pins for digital I/O. We demonstrate that this bench-top system can obtain 170 pA current noise floor, 40 ns pulse delivery at ±13.5 V and 12 mA maximum current drive/channel. We then showcase the instrument’s use in performing a selection of three characteristic measurement tasks: (a) current–voltage characterisation of a diode and a transistor, (b) fully parallel read-out of a memristor crossbar array and (c) an integral non-linearity test on a DAC. This work introduces a down-scaled electronics laboratory packaged in a single instrument which provides a shift towards more affordable, reliable, compact and multi-functional instrumentation for emerging electronic technologies.