Built-in Self-Test for Monitoring Analog Circuits

Integrating analog circuits with the most advanced digitally-tuned processes increases the defect rates and the risk of in-field wear out. Coupled with the reduced accessibility arising from this level of integration, increasing defect rates necessitate systematic approaches to analog testing. Structural built-in self-test (BIST) for analog circuits can reduce test development complexity. Proposing a robust and low-cost structural BIST method for analog circuits. The proposed method relies on perturbing the analog circuit at an injection point and observing the result at an observation point as a digitally measurable time delay. Injection can be achieved via simple ON/OFF keying while the observation can be achieved by a self-referencing comparator. Multiple injection points can be selected at low cost (single transistor) while the observation circuit can be shared across many injection points and different circuit blocks.