Modeling of TVS Diode Harmonic Distortion Using Piecewise Linear Capacitance

When used in RF applications, TVS diodes exhibit harmonic distortion due to their nonlinear capacitance and other effects. This article presents an approach to modeling harmonic distortion caused by TVS diodes using nonlinear capacitance. The approach is novel in the sense that it is highly automatable, computationally cheap, and generic. First, the harmonic distortion measurements are described. Then, the capacitor model is introduced and its harmonic distortion is analyzed analytically. A fitting procedure is described to convert the observed harmonic distortion into the coefficients of the model. Finally, the process is demonstrated on real data and the models were tested against an experiment.