Testing analog circuits by sensitivity computation

An approach is presented for fault diagnosis, at component level of analog circuits, by using functional testing. It is based on the determination of the deviation of one or many components with respect to the value fixed by the designer. Components deviation is determined by measuring a number of output parameters and by sensitivity estimation. A solution of the test equations, based on the sensitivity matrix, gives the deviation of the defective components. Different types of measurements are combined to achieve an adequate test coverage with a minimum cost. Some experimental results are given to clarify the approach and to show its efficiency