Yet another semiconductor V/I curve tracer – I

Kerry D. Wong writes:

Semiconductor curve tracers were frequently used in analog circuit designs many decades ago, at a time when discrete semiconductor devices were in dominance and ICs were scarce. While curve tracers are no longer widely used nowadays due to the ubiquity of digital circuitry and computer aided designs, they are still quite popular in the educational world and among hobbyists. In this and the next post, I will discuss some of the design considerations of a curve tracer that I built and show some real-world measurement results.