What are the different testing approaches for mixed signal Analog and Digital circuits?
Answers
Although most electronic circuits are almost entirely digital, many include at least a small part that is essentially analog. This is due to the need to interface with the real physical world, that is analog in nature. As demanding market segments require ever more complex mixed a signal solutions, high quality tests become essential to meet circuit specifications in terms of reliability, times to, costs, etc. In order to lower costs associated to traditional specifications driven tests and, additionally, achieve acceptable fault coverages for analog and mixed I signal circuits, it is reasonable to expect that no other solution than a move towards defects oriented designs first eat methods will be applicable in the design future. Therefore,design testing tends to be dominated by embedded mechanisms to allow for accessibility to internal test points, to achieve one chip test generation, one chip test response evaluation, or even to make it possible the detection of errors concurrently to the circuit application. Within this context, an overview of existing test methods is given in this chapter, focusing on designs forte stability, built-in self-esteem and self a checking techniques suitable for the detection of realistic defects in analog and mixed a signal integrated circuits.