Integrated Test for Silicon Front Ends

Silicon-based technologies have enabled the monolithic integration of transceiver circuits with operational frequencies up into the millimeter-wave regime. While high integration relaxes the requirements on RF chip-to-chip interconnects and external circuitry, it imposes serious challenges upon the traceability of failure mechanisms and functional errors of the individual building blocks that comprise the front-end. Additionally, expensive external measurement equipment in combination with complex, error-prone, and time-consuming calibration procedures, necessitates the development of on-chip test modules. It has been shown that a variety of built-in test schemes are currently the topic of research for both the mixed-signal and microwave domain. Solutions for the individual building blocks that will enable direct verification of performance parameters have been presented throughout this article. Current RF transceiver architectures will require a mixture of both paradigms for successful implementation of integrated test strategies. It is the authors' belief that the application of such concepts is a must for future integrated transceiver systems to meet the stringent requirements of time-to-market and low-cost of mass market consumer products.