Built-in-self-test of analogue circuits using optimised fault sets and transient response testing

Transient Response Testing has been shown to be a very powerful and economical functional test technique for linear analogue cells in mixed-signal systems. Recently this work has been extended to non-linear analogue circuits by treating Transient Response Testing as a structural test technique and employing optimised and reduced fault sets that are derived from Inductive Fault Analysis and circuit sensitivity analyses. These developments have been very successful and have also facilitated a novel BIST methodology for analogue circuits. The BIST scheme employs a generic on-chip stimulus for all analogue cells and features a specially designed test cell that coordinates a short test sequence that involves sampling the transient response at key instants in the test cycle and comparing to a known reference.