Source measure unit instrument with an interactive touchscreen display

Paul Boughton

Keithley Instruments has announced 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 2450’s design, Keithley’s latest generation of SMU instruments, offers a fundamentally new way for users to interact with test and measurement instruments.

The new design 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 orientated.

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 Model 2450 builds on the design strengths and high precision of both the Model 2400 SourceMeter SMU instrument (an industry standard since its 1995 introduction) and the newer Series 2600B System SourceMeter SMU Instrument line.

The Model 2450 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 IV systems, curve tracers, and semiconductor analysers at a fraction of their cost.

For more information, visit at www.keithley.com