G01R31/31937

INTEGRATED CIRCUIT MARGIN MEASUREMENT AND FAILURE PREDICTION DEVICE

A semiconductor integrated circuit (IC) comprising a signal path combiner, comprising a plurality of input paths and an output path. The IC comprises a delay circuit having an input electrically connected to the output path, the delay circuit delaying an input signal by a variable delay time to output a delayed signal path. The IC may comprise a first storage circuit electrically connected to the output path and a second storage circuit electrically connected to the delayed signal path. The IC comprises a comparison circuit that compares outputs of the signal path combiner and the delayed signal, wherein the comparison circuit comprises a comparison output provided in a comparison data signal to at least one mitigation circuit.

Error rate measuring apparatus and error rate measuring method
11579192 · 2023-02-14 · ·

An error rate measuring apparatus includes a data transmission unit that transmits a test signal of a known pattern and a parameter value defined by a communication standard to a device under test, and a bit error measurement unit that measures a bit error of a signal transmitted from the device under test. The data transmission unit sequentially changes the parameter value and transmits the parameter value to the device under test. The bit error measurement unit measures a bit error of a signal transmitted from the device under test corresponding to the parameter value. The error rate measuring apparatus further includes a discrimination unit that discriminates a parameter value at which the number of bit errors is the least in a measurement result of the bit error measurement unit, as an optimum value of emphasis of an output waveform of the device under test.

METHOD AND DEVICE FOR IMPROVING SYNCHRONIZATION IN A COMMUNICATIONS LINK
20180013545 · 2018-01-11 ·

A data reception device comprises: a first data input for receiving a first data signal and a clock input for receiving a clock signal; and a stability detection circuit adapted to generate: a first error signal indicating when a data transition of the first data signal occurs during a first period at least partially before a first significant clock edge of the clock signal; and a second error signal indicating when a data transition of the first data signal occurs during a second period at least partially after the first significant clock edge of the clock signal; and a control circuit configured to generate a control signal for adjusting the sampling time of the first data signal based on said first and second error signals.

On-die aging measurements for dynamic timing modeling

An integrated circuit die includes a core fabric configurable to include an aging measurement circuit and a device manager coupled to the core fabric to operate the aging measurement circuit for a select period of time. The aging measurement circuit includes a counter to count transitions of a signal propagating through the aging measurement circuit during the select period of time when the aging measurement circuit is operating. The transitions of the signal counted by the counter during the select period of time are a measure of an aging characteristic of the integrated circuit die.

On-Die Aging Measurements for Dynamic Timing Modeling

A method includes mapping an aging measurement circuit (AMC) into the core fabric of an FPGA and operating the AMC for a select time period. During the select period of time, the AMC counts transition of a signal propagating through the AMC. Timing information based on the counted transitions is stored in a timing model in a memory. The timing information represents an aging characteristic of the core fabric at a time that the AMC is operated. An EDA toolchain uses the timing information in the timing model to generate a timing guard-band for the configurable IC die. The AMC is removed from the core fabric and another circuit device is mapped and fitted into the core fabric using the generated timing guard-band models. The circuit device is operated in the configurable IC die based on the timing guard-band models.

Measuring and evaluating a test signal generated by a device under test (DUT)
11632200 · 2023-04-18 · ·

Embodiments described herein generally relate to measuring and evaluating a test signal generated by a device under test (DUT). In particular, the test signal generated by the DUT may be compared to a reference signal and scored based on the comparison. For example, a method may include: capturing a test signal from a device under test; splicing the test signal into a plurality of test audio files based on a plurality of frequency bins; at each frequency bin, comparing each of the plurality of test audio files to a corresponding reference audio file from among a plurality of reference audio files, the plurality of reference audio files being associated with a reference signal; and calculating a performance score of the device under test based on the comparisons.

SETUP TIME AND HOLD TIME DETECTION SYSTEM AND DETECTION METHOD
20220326304 · 2022-10-13 ·

A setup time and hold time detection system including a monitoring unit and a processing unit. The monitoring unit is configured to detect multiple setup times and multiple hold times of multiple test circuits through a source clock signal. The processing unit is configured to record multiple setup times and multiple hold times as multiple detection data. The processing unit is further configured to select a first part of the detection data as multiple first detection data to establish an estimation model. The processing unit is further configured to select a second part of the detection data as multiple second detection data, and compare the second detection data and multiple estimation results generated by the estimation model to obtain an error value of the estimation model.

Systems and Methods for Measurement of a Parameter of a DUT

Systems, methods, and circuits for determining a duty cycle of a periodic input signal are provided. A delay element is configured to delay the periodic input signal based on a digital control word. A digital circuit is configured to generate a first digital control word used to delay the periodic input signal a first amount of time corresponding to a period of the periodic input signal, generate a second digital control word used to delay the periodic input signal a second amount of time corresponding to a portion of the periodic input signal having a logic-level high value, and generate a third digital control word used to delay the periodic input signal a third amount of time corresponding to a portion of the periodic input signal having a logic-level low value. A controller is configured to determine the duty cycle based on the first, second, and third digital control words.

Measurement system for characterizing a device under test

In a measurement system, a signal probing circuit may provide probed signals by probing voltages and currents and/or incident and reflected waves at a port of a device under test (DUT). A multi-channel receiver structure may include receivers that receive two probed signals from the signal probing hardware circuit, each receiver having its own sample clock derived from a master clock and further having a respective digitizer for digitizing a corresponding one of the two probed signals. A synchronization block, external to the receivers and including a reference clock derived from the master clock, may enable the two probed signals to be phase coherently digitized across the receivers by synchronizing the respective sample clocks of the receivers while the reference clock is being shared with the receivers. A signal processing circuit may then process the phase coherently digitized probed signals.

USING DIRECT SUMS AND INVARIANCE GROUPS TO TEST PARTIALLY SYMMETRIC QUANTUM-LOGIC CIRCUITS
20170370989 · 2017-12-28 ·

A method and associated systems for using direct sums and invariance groups to optimize the testing of partially symmetric quantum-logic circuits is disclosed. A test system receives information that describes the architecture of a quantum-logic circuit to be tested. The system uses this information to organize the circuit's inputs into two or more mutually exclusive subsets of inputs. The system computes a direct sum of a set of groups associated with the subsets in order to generate an invariance group that contains one or more invariant permutations of the circuit's inputs. These invariant permutations can be used to reduce the number of tests required to fully verify the circuit for all possible input vectors. Once one specific input vector has been verified, there is no need to test other vectors that can be generated by performing any one of the invariant permutations upon the previously verified vector.