ON-CHIP SUPPLY CURRENT SENSOR FOR DYNAMIC TESTING OF CMOS ICS

Viera Stopjaková - Ján Butaš - Daniela Ďuračková

   The first partial goal of the work, presented in this article, was to analyse the transient power supply current drawn by CMOS circuits in the presence of certain physical defects and evaluate the applicability of dynamic supply current testing as a complementary approach to conventional test methods. The influence of a wide class of defects on the transient supply current of CMOS basic cells has been investigated by electrical simulations and some results obtained are presented. Furthermore, a new transient built- in current monitor, based on the idea to quantify charge involved in transient current peaks rather than to compare the shape of the current peaks, is proposed. The monitor was designed for MIETEC 0.7 4 um CMOS technology and simulated using HSPICE. Significant results summarising the possibilities and the limitations of the circuit are discussed as well.

Keywords: supply current monitoring, BIC monitor, VLSI testing, CMOS defects

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