A test technique and a BIST circuit to detect catastrophic faults in RF Mixers

Author

Liaperdos, I. ; Dermentzoglou, L. ; Arapoyanni, A. ; Tsiatouhas, Y.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Inf. Technol. & Telecommun., Technol. Educ. Inst. of Kalamata, Kalamata, Greece

fYear

2011

fDate

6-8 April 2011

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

6

Abstract

A test technique and a Built-In Self-Test (BIST) circuit to detect catastrophic faults in RF Mixers is presented in this paper. During test application the Mixer is set to operate in homodyne mode and the DC levels generated at its outputs are used as test observables. These test observables are converted to digital signatures, by a simple embedded circuit, and are used to discriminate fault free from faulty Mixers. The proposed technique has been applied to a typical differential RF Mixer designed in a 0.18μm CMOS technology. Simulation results validated its efficiency to provide a high coverage of catastrophic faults which exceeds 90%.

Keywords

CMOS digital integrated circuits; built-in self test; integrated circuit testing; mixers (circuits); BIST circuit; CMOS technology; built-in self-test; catastrophic fault detection; digital signatures; homodyne mode; radiofrequency mixers; size 0.18 mum; Built-in self-test; Circuit faults; Mixers; Radiation detectors; Radio frequency; Voltage-controlled oscillators; Built-in-Self Test; Defect-Oriented Testing; Design for Testability; RF Mixer;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Design & Technology of Integrated Systems in Nanoscale Era (DTIS), 2011 6th International Conference on

Conference_Location

Athens

Print_ISBN

978-1-61284-899-0

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/DTIS.2011.5941433

Filename

5941433