The design for test architecture in digital section of the ATLAS FE-I4 chip

Abstract

This paper describes an original Design-for-Test (DfT) architecture implemented in the ATLAS FE-I4 pixel readout System-on-Chip (Soc) to accommodate the higher quality demands of future generation LHC detectors. To ensure that the highest possible number of fault-free devices is used for the detector construction, the so-called production test to detect faulty devices after the manufacturing has to be executed. For that reason, we devised a straightforward and effective DfT circuitry inside the digital part of the FE-I4 that will enable high fault coverage of potential structural faults while maintaining the performance and area penalties of the entire design negligible.