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Short Circuit

Thread Summary

A French startup encountered short circuits on their prototype boards using the ADAR1000 and ADTR1107 components. The issue was resolved by understanding that the ADTR1107's PA is depletion mode, requiring a negative gate voltage (VGG_PA) before applying a positive VDD_PA to avoid a short. The engineer also provided a link to an application note on reliable PCB assembly for land grid array packages.
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Category: Hardware
Product Number: ADTR1107

We are a French startup company….we are developing a Phased array RADAR system based on the ADAR1000 and on multiple ADTR1107…..We produced our prototype boards in PCBWay. Unfortunately, the received boards show a short circuit, whereas no short circuit are present on the non-assembled boards, which leads to think that the problem is due to some defective component….After a laborious process of de-soldering and soldering components, we came to the conclusion that the ADTR1107 components are the ones responsible of the short. To be sure, we measured the resistance between the Vdd pin (PIN8) and the ground on the chips and we were surprised to discover that the PIN8 and the GND were shorted (we repeated the test for the 32 chips)

  • Hi Nawfal,

    it's actually correct that you measure a short between VDD_PA and ground with the part unbiased. The PA in the ADTR1107 is depletion mode. That means that it requires a negative gate voltage to bias it on (this increases the drain to source resistance). If you leave the gate voltage open or grounded (VGG_PA, Pin 7), the Drain-to-Source resistance will be close to zero ohms. This the reason for the step-by-step bias-on procedure (i.e. set VGG_PA to a negative voltage before applying a positive voltage to VDD_PA. 

    In case your problem is board/solder related, there is a link to an application note that was written from some hard-won experience we had with ADAR1000. 

    Reliable PCB Assembly of Land Grid Array Packages in Planar Phased Array Antennas | Analog Devices

    Eamon