Novel Process and Temperature-Stable BICS for Embedded Analog and Mixed-Signal Test

This paper proposes a new current sensor design for the arduous task of testing embedded analog and mixed-signal circuits. This proposed, wide-band, minimally-intrusive IDD sensor operates up to 230MHz, which is 2.3X faster than previously proposed designs, and occupies 78.3% less area than another competing design, while achieving an inherent tolerance to process and temperature variations without sacrificing significant area. A BiST utilizing this novel IDD sensor is created and tested on a CMOS op-amp and mixer showing high fault detection sensitivity, while maintaining the performance of the DUT (device-under-test). The experiments are implemented in 0.18mum TSMC CMOS mixed- signal technology.