Analog Fault Simulation - a Hot Topic!

Automotive applications are driving the need for a systematic way to decrease analog test escape rates to 0 DPPM, while providing functional safety. This tutorial briefly reviews the history of analog fault simulation, from academic simulation of basic shorts and opens, to the advent of industrial analog defect/fault simulators. Then it addresses the two biggest problems: no industry-accepted fault model, and impractically long simulation time. The solutions are the proposed IEEE P2427 standard for analog defect coverage, for which a brief summary of its requirements is provided, and a variety of methods to reduce total simulation time, such as defect collapsing, simulating only the most likely defects or likelihood-weighted randomly selection of defects, and parallel simulation.