Testing a DUT Breakdown Voltage Using NI Digital

This article outlines alternative to use NI Digital to determine a voltage breakdown threshold. 

There are two methods to test a DUT breakdown voltage using NI-Digital. The two discussed methods are using a PPMU source/measure loop in the LabVIEW API or using the Digital Pattern Editor shmoo plot to sweep V_f and obtain a pass/fail value from the comparator:

1. LabVIEW
2. Digital Pattern Editor

1. LabVIEW

   1. Download and extract the zip file attached in the bottom of this article. 
   2. Open the LabVIEW example "NI-Digital PPMU Source and Measure_Ramp_Pattern.vi", this example is based on the shipping example "NI-Digital PPMU Source and Measure.vi"   Note: This image is a LabVIEW snippet, which includes LabVIEW code that you can reuse in your project. To use a snippet, right-click the image, save it to your computer, and drag the file onto your LabVIEW diagram.
   3. Verify that the path selected for the Pin Map is correct.
   4. Run the VI

2. Digital Pattern Editor

   1. Open Digital Pattern Editor 
   2. Load the pin map attached at the end of this article, you can also create a basic pattern for this test. 
   3. Make sure the pattern is expecting a certain voltage coming from the DUT, the Shamo plot has to run a pattern even if is the measure is not related with a pattern. In the example attached we decide to handle the channel 21 as the output of the DUT and the channel 22 as the Enable pin
   4.  Sweep V_f using a Shamo plot
   5. Review which points the pattern passes or fails, and that will be the point the DUT is outputting the expected voltage. 

The output of the Shamo plot in Digital Pattern Editor is the following: