A broadband and high tuning sensitivity VCO detector for on-package IR-drop and signal-integrity measurement

Nowadays, ICs work in high speed and high frequency environments, the effects that package brings has become more and more obvious. These effects can be classified as signal integrity (SI) and power integrity (PI). In this paper, A VCO detector circuit with broadband and sensitivity characterizations is designed and used to evaluate on-package DC IR-drop and signal-integrity. The package structure we used in this paper is wire-BGA. The methods for testing IR-drop and SI effects by this wide tuning range and high tuning sensitivity VCO with different package circuit design were shown in this research. Thus, these effects can be observed from the relationship between voltage, frequency, and the trend of the output sweeps.