Pseudorandom testing for mixed-signal circuits

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a pseudorandom testing scheme for mixed-signal circuits. We first describe the pseudorandom testing technique for linear analog components and converters in mixed-signal circuits. With proper arithmetic operations on the responses to the random patterns, the impulse response of the device under test (DUT) can be constructed and used as the signature. By checking the constructed signatures against the derived tolerance ranges, we can infer the correctness of the DUT without explicitly measuring the original performance parameters. We also describe a technique of mapping the tolerance ranges in the performance space to its associated tolerance ranges in the signature space. The major advantages of our pseudorandom testing scheme are: (1) a universal input stimulus (white noise) is used and thus test generation can be avoided, (2) signatures for high quality testing can be easily constructed and thus testing cost can be minimized, and (3) the scheme can be used for Built-In Self-Test (BIST) implementation for DSP-based mixed-signal designs. We present simulation results to illustrate the effectiveness of the scheme.