Built-in current sensor for IDDQ test

A practical built-in current sensor (BICS) design is described in This work. This sensor system is able to monitor the IDDQ at a resolution level of 10 /spl mu/A. This system can translate the current level into a digital signal, with scan chain readout. There is no system performance degradation for this sensor and its power dissipation is kept at a very low level. With the help of a self-calibration circuit, the sensor can maintain its accuracy and achieve a clock rate of over 1 GHz, for a measurement time of a few milliseconds.