The Model 2461 High Current SourceMeter® Source Measure Unit (SMU) Instrument brings advanced Touch, Test, Invent® technology right to your fingertips. It combines an innovative graphical user interface (GUI) with capacitive touchscreen technology to make testing intuitive and minimize the learning curve to help engineers and scientists learn faster, work smarter, and invent easier. With its 10A/1000W pulse current and 7A/100W DC current capability combined with dual 18-bit 1MS/s digitizers, the Model 2461 is optimized for characterizing and testing high power materials, devices, and modules, such as silicon carbide (SiC), gallium nitride (GaN), DC-DC converters, circuit protection devices, solar cells and panels, high brightness LEDs and lighting systems, electrochemical cells and batteries, and much more. These new capabilities, combined with Keithley’s expertise in high precision, high accuracy SMU instruments, will make the Model 2461 a “go-to instrument” for high current sourcing and high speed measurement applications in the lab and in the rack for years to come.

Learn Faster; Work Smarter; Invent Easier

The Model 2461 features a five-inch, full-color, high resolution touchscreen that supports intuitive operation, helps operators become familiar with the instrument quickly, and optimizes overall speed and productivity. A simple icon-based menu structure reduces the number of steps required to configure a test by as much as 50 percent and eliminates the cumbersome multi-layer menu structures typically used on soft-key instruments. Built-in, context-sensitive help supports intuitive operation and minimizes the need to review a separate manual. These capabilities, combined with the Model 2461’s high versatility, simplify its operation in both basic and advanced measurement applications, regardless of the user’s previous experience in working with SMU instruments.

The Model 2461’s home screen makes testing intuitive and helps minimize the learning curve for new users.

The graphical SMU’s icon-based menu structure helps even novice users configure tests quickly and confidently.

Capture Real Device Operation with the Built-in Dual 1MS/sec Digitizers

Capturing and displaying real device operation, waveforms, and transient events just got easier with the Model 2461’s digitizing function. The two built-in 1MS/sec, 18-bit digitizers make it possible to acquire both voltage and current waveforms simultaneously without the need to use a separate instrument. The digitizing functions employ the same DC voltage and current measure ranges that the standard A/D converter uses. In addition, the voltage digitizing function uses the same DC voltage 10GΩ input impedance levels to reduce loading significantly on the device under test (DUT).

The high speed digitizing function allows capturing and displaying voltage and current measurements simultaneously.

All-in-One SMU Instrument

The Model 2461, part of Keithley’s fourth generation of SourceMeter SMUs, leverages the proven capabilities of the original Series 2400 SourceMeter SMU Instruments, such as the Models 2420, 2425, 2430, and 2440. SMU instruments offer a highly flexible, four-quadrant voltage and current source/load coupled with precision voltage and current measurements. This all-in-one instrument offers the capabilities of a:

• Precision power supply with V and I readback
• True current source
• Digital multimeter (DCV, DCI, ohms, and power with 6½-digit resolution)
• Precision electronic load
• Pulse generator
• Trigger controller

2461 Power Envelope

Ease of Use Beyond the Touchscreen

In addition to its five-inch color touchscreen, the 2461 Graphical SourceMeter front panel offers a variety of features that enhance its speed, user-friendliness, and learnability, including a USB 2.0 memory I/O port, a HELP key, a rotary navigation/control knob, a front/rear input selector button, and banana jacks for basic bench applications. The USB 2.0 memory port simplifies storing test results and instrument configurations, uploading test scripts into the instrument, and installing system upgrades. All front-panel buttons are backlit to enhance visibility in low-light environments.

Four “Quickset” modes simplify instrument setup. With one touch, the instrument can be quickly configured for various operating modes without the need to configure the instrument indirectly for this operation.

The Model 2461’s high resolution, capacitive touchscreen and front panel controls allow for intuitive operation, even by novice users.

One-touch Quickset modes speed measurement setups and minimize the time to measurements.

Model 2461 rear panel connections are optimized to maintain signal integrity and speed system setup.

Comprehensive Built-in Connectivity

Rear panel access to rear-input connectors, remote control interfaces (GPIB, USB 2.0, and LXI/Ethernet), D-sub 9-pin digital I/O port (for internal/external trigger signals and handler control), instrument interlock control, and TSP-Link® jacks make it simple to configure multiple instrument test solutions and eliminate the need to invest in additional adapter accessories.

Convert Raw Data to Information

A full graphical plotting window converts raw data and displays it immediately as useful information, such as semiconductor I-V curves and digitized waveforms. The touchscreen interface makes it easy to observe, interact with, and explore measurements with “pinch and zoom” simplicity. By using the built-in graphing cursors, you can immediately analyze your data without a PC. All graphic screens can be saved to a USB thumb drive for incorporation into reports and journals. Using the graphical SMU’s Sheet view, test data can also be displayed in tabular form. The instrument supports exporting data to a spreadsheet for further analysis, dramatically improving productivity for research, benchtop testing, device qualification, and debugging. This combination of high performance and high ease of use offers unparalleled insight into your test results.

TriggerFlow® Building Blocks for Instrument Control and Execution

The Model 2461 incorporates Keithley’s TriggerFlow triggering system, which provides user control over instrument execution. TriggerFlow diagrams are created in much the same way that flow charts are developed, using four fundamental building block types:

• Wait – Waits for an event to occur before the flow continues
• Branch – Branches when a condition has been satisfied
• Action – Initiates an action in the instrument, for example, measure, source, delay, set digital I/O, etc.
• Notify – Notifies other equipment that an event has occurred

A TriggerFlow model using a combination of these building blocks can be created from the front panel or by sending remote commands. With the TriggerFlow system, users can build triggering models from very simple to complex with up to 255 block levels. The Model 2461 also includes basic triggering functions, including immediate, timer, and manual triggering.

TriggerFlow building blocks allow creating triggering models that range from very simple to highly complex.

Contact Check Function

The Contact Check function makes it simple to verify good connections quickly and easily before an automated test sequence begins. This eliminates measurement errors and false failures associated with contact fatigue, breakage, contamination, loose or broken connection, relay failures, etc. Some capabilities of this function are:

• <100μs verification and notification process time
• 3 pass/fail threshold values: 2Ω, 15Ω, and 50Ω
• Enabled remotely over the GPIB, USB, or Ethernet (LXI) interfaces

Unmatched System Integration and Programming Flexibility

When a Model 2461 is configured into a multi-channel I-V test system, its embedded Test Script Processor (TSP®) allows it to run test scripts, so users can create powerful measurement applications with significantly reduced development times. TSP technology also offers channel expansion without a mainframe. Keithley’s TSP-Link® channel expansion bus, which uses a 100 Base T Ethernet cable, can connect multiple graphical SourceMeter SMUs (Model 2450, 2460, 2461), and other TSP instruments such as Keithley’s Model DMM7510 7½-Digit Graphical Sampling Multimeter, Series 2600B System SourceMeter SMU instruments, and Series 3700A Switch/Multimeter systems in a master-slave configuration that operates as one integrated system. The TSP-Link expansion bus supports up to 32 units per GPIB or IP address, making it easy to scale a system to fit an application’s particular requirements. The Model 2461 also includes a SCPI programming mode that takes advantage of all of the instrument’s capabilities.

Parallel Test Capability

The TSP technology in the Model 2461 supports testing multiple devices in parallel to meet the needs of device research, advanced semiconductor lab applications, and even high throughput production test. This parallel testing capability allows each instrument in the system to run its own complete test sequence, creating a fully multi-threaded test environment. The number of tests that can be run in parallel on a graphical SourceMeter can be as high as the number of instruments in the system.

Free Instrument Control Start-up Software

KickStart instrument control/start-up software, available for the Model 2461, lets users start taking measurements in minutes without programming. In most cases, users merely need to make some quick measurements, graph the data, and store the data to disk for later analysis in software environments such as Excel. KickStart offers:

• Instrument configuration control to perform I-V characterization
• Native X-Y graphing, panning, and zooming
• Spreadsheet/tabular viewing of data
• Saving and exporting data for further analysis
• Saving of test setups
• Screenshot capturing of graph
• Annotation of tests
• Command line dialog for sending and receiving data
• HTML help
• GPIB, USB 2.0, Ethernet compliance

KickStart start-up software lets users be ready to take measurements in minutes.

Simplified Programming with Ready-to-Use Instrument Drivers

For those who prefer to create their own customized application software, native National Instruments LabVIEW® drivers, as well as IVI-C and IVICOM drivers, are available at www.tek.com.