CIE Components in Electronics
Keithley Instruments has introduced the first benchtop Source Measure Unit (SMU) instrument with a capacitive touchscreen graphical user interface. The Model 2450 SourceMeter SMU Instrument combines the intuitive touchscreen and icon-based control that novice SMU users can appreciate with the exceptional versatility that experienced users need to learn faster, work smarter, and invent easier.
The Model’s design, Keithley’s latest generation of SMU instruments, offers a fundamentally new way for users to interact with test and measurement instruments and is based on the company’s innovative “Touch, Test, Invent” design philosophy.
This design philosophy reflects recent market changes, including shrinking product design/development cycles and fewer personnel devoted exclusively to test engineering tasks. At the same time, the profile of the typical instrument user has also evolved. In addition to electrical engineers, it now includes a growing number of non-engineers (such as electrochemists, physicists, materials scientists, etc.) who need fast access to data but sometimes have limited training in electrical measurement. Additionally, as the previous generation of electrical engineers has retired, their younger replacements have tended to be more software oriented than hardware oriented. To accommodate all of these market and user changes, the Model 2450 incorporates numerous ease-of-use features that ensure a faster “time-to-answer” than competitive solutions, including a context-sensitive help function, “Quickset” modes that speed instrument configuration, and on-screen graphing capabilities that quickly turn raw data into usable results.
The 2450 builds on the design strengths and high precision of both the 2400 SourceMeter SMU instrument (an industry standard since its 1995 introduction) and the newer Series 2600B System SourceMeter SMU Instrument line. It combines the functionality of a power supply, true current source, 6-1/2-digit multimeter, electronic load, and trigger controller in one tightly integrated, half-rack instrument. With all of these capabilities, the Model 2450 integrates the capabilities of I-V systems, curve tracers, and semiconductor analyzers at a fraction of their cost.
The 2450’s features are intended to speed up and simplify lab/benchtop work providing a full-colour, 5-inch touchscreen user interface; extended measurement ranges with superior low current performance; a built-in context-sensitive help function; error and event logging and KickStart start-up software.
