Applications of On-Chip Samplers for Test and Measurement of Integrated Circuits
Abstract
Displaying the real-time behavior of critical signals on VLSI chips is difficult and can require expensive test equipment. The authors present a simple sampling technique to display the analog waveforms of high bandwidth on-chip signals on a laboratory oscilloscope. It is based on the subsampling of periodic signals as proposed in "Measuring High-bandwidth Signals in CMOS Circuits (Electronics Letters, v29 n20, p1761-1762, Sep 1993). This circuit was used to verify the operation of a recent low-power SRAM design. This technique requires relatively inexpensive laboratory equipment and increases the capacitive loading of the measured nodes by only a few fF. True on-chip bitline swings, clock waveforms, half-swing pulses, and noise couplings were observed on a low-power SRAM design. (5 figures, 2 refs.)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1998
- Accession Number
- ADA419648
Entities
People
- Bennett Wilburn
- Bharadwaj Amrutur
- Ken Mai
- Mark Horowitz
- Ron Ho
- Toshihiko Mori
Organizations
- Stanford University