Re: Curve Tracer

On 7/02/2025 8:18 am, john larkin wrote:

On Thu, 6 Feb 2025 23:11:58 +1100, Chris Jones
<lugnut808@spam.yahoo.com> wrote:
 

On 6/02/2025 2:45 pm, Bill Sloman wrote:

On-Semi makes two monolithic duals, the NST45010 and the NST45011
>
https://www.onsemi.com/pdf/datasheet/nst45010mw6-d.pdf
https://www.onsemi.com/download/data-sheet/pdf/nst45011mw6-d.pdf
>

>
What makes you think those are monolithic? I think they are separate
chips, but measured to have similar parameters, like the BCM846BS.
>
The thermal coupling between the chips will be poor, so they will no
longer be matched if the dissipation is not the same between them. You
could cascode a current mirror to fix that, but if you are trying to
make an exponentiator (as used in analogue synth VCOs) then you are
stuffed, because you need to operate the two transistors at different
currents, that being the whole point of the circuit.
>
You will know if they are monolithic because it will have a pin called
"substrate" or a note saying one of the pins is the substrate, and there
will be a spec pointing out that the voltage between the two devices
must be kept below some lowish value.

You would know if they were monolithic if they did have a substrate pin.
The fact that they haven't got one isn't proof that they aren't monolithic. A stronger argument is that they haven't put any limits on device-to-device voltages.
My reason for thinking that they were monolithic was the 2mV worst case and the 1mVB typical difference in Vbe at 2mA.
Monolithic does seem to offer the cheapest route to get that.

They are two similar chips, not monolithic. Thermals will be awful.

Prove it.
They may be two separate close-to-identical chips. There isn't room in the package to mount them far apart, and the chip to chip thermal resistance can't be large, and has to be much smaller than the package to ambient thermal resistance, which is 328C/Watt.
Thermals won't be awful. Somebody who doesn't know about Wilson current mirrors isn't going to be a particularly reliable source of information about that kind of subject.
Interdigitated monolithic is hard to beat for thermal matching but side-by-side devices on the same subtrate aren't going to be any better than  devices on separate substrates if the substrates are mounted back-to-back.
--
Bill Sloman, Sydney