Analog / Mixed-Signal Test and Design-for-Test for Integrated Circuits - High Tech Institute

Integrated circuits (ICs) are manufactured by a long sequence of high-precision and hence defect-prone processing steps. Each IC must undergo stringent electrical tests to weed out defective parts and guarantee outgoing product quality to the customer. The field of ‘Design-for-Test’ (DfT) focuses in the broad sense on developing economically adequate tests for ICs. The tests must ensure sufficient quality at acceptable test application costs, corresponding to the target application area (e.g., wireless consumer products have less stringent quality requirements, but also different test cost budgets than medical or aerospace products).

Analog and mixed-signal (A/MS) ICs require different testers than for digital ICs, as well as different DfT techniques, measures of test quality, fault simulation, and test programs. Until quite recently, there has been very little automation to address these differences, mostly due to a lack of standardization in defining analog faults and defects, measuring a test’s coverage, test access to ICs, and DfT circuitry. This course teaches the principles of practical A/MS DfT and test, and the imminent IEEE standards that facilitate systematic solutions now and eventually much more automation.

This course is presented by a world-renowned speaker in the field with broad scientific and industrial experience: Stephen Sunter, Engineering Director for Mixed Signal DfT at Siemens EDA.

His course stands out due to the fact that:

· it is highly practical: combining specification-based and structural tests for manufacturing defects and functional safety;

· it has an industry-standard focus: up-to-date details on IEEE 2427 (defect coverage) and P1687.2 (analog IJTAG);

· it is taught by someone who has worked in A/MS design, testing, and DfT, for almost 50 years, and has been Chair or Vice-Chair of the three IEEE Working Groups for A/MS DfT standards.

This training is available for open enrollment as well as for in-company sessions. For in-company sessions, the training can be customized to fit your specific situation and requirements.

Objective

After the course, the participant will:

· understand the trends and challenges of testing for manufacturing defects in the overall IC product creation process;

· know the dominant IC defect types (shorts, opens, parametric) and their associated simulation models;

· know the role of simulation for defect modeling and how defect coverage can be measured in a practical amount of time;

· know the requirements of IEEE 2427 for reporting defect coverage;

· understand the basics of measuring ISO 26262 metrics for functional safety;

· know techniques to make the analog portion of an IC more testable: test access ports, analog test busses, reconfiguration, serial shift registers for conveying control and results, mixed-signal wrappers, reuse of on-chip resources, and Built-In Self-Test (BIST);

· know how to describe mixed-signal test access and tests according to IEEE P1687.2;

· know the concept of automating test program generation from a generic mixed-signal test language;

· be able to make a reasoned choice from available Design-for-Test (DfT) techniques for specification and structural tests.

Target audience

This course is intended for those involved in DfT and test of A/MS ICs: Analog / mixed-signal IC design engineers, test and product engineers, and DfT engineers. Also: test researchers, test methodology developers, test tool developers, and their managers!

Required background knowledge:

· Education level: technical college / university in Electrical or Computer Engineering;

· Familiarity with analog IC design, manufacturing, testing, and related statistics;

· Recommended: several years of industrial practice.

Start date Expected June 2026 Next edition info

Duration 3 afternoons

Frequency Once per year

Involved

Stephen Sunter, BASc

Price per participant € 1,145 excl. VAT *

Download brochure

Program

Afternoon 1: Mixed-Signal DfT and BIST: Trends, Challenges and Solutions

· Introduction

· Trends and challenges in analog testing and DfT

· Trends and challenges in analog DfT standards

· Trends and challenges in analog BIST

· Essential principles of practical analog DfT and BIST

· Road to practical solutions

· Structural test

· Conclusions

Afternoon 2: Analog Defect Modelling and Measuring Defect Coverage

· Introduction

· Analog defects and terminology

· Analog defect injection for simulation

· Defect weighting

· Defect simulation and estimating DPPM

· Diagnosing undetected defects to improve coverage

· Measuring ISO 26262 metrics

· Conclusions

Afternoon 3: Systematic Analog DfT and Test Generation

· Introduction

· Systematic DfT strategies

· Overview of IEEE 1687 and P1687.2

· Instrument Connectivity Language (ICL) to describe test access

· Procedural Description Language (PDL) to describe mixed-signal tests

· Streaming data to DACs and from ADCs

· Analog IJTAG Practical Example

· Conclusions

Methods

The lecture pace leaves time throughout for detailed questions on practical analog / mixed-signal test and DfT challenges. Course material: lecture notes.

Certification

Participants will receive a High Tech Institute course certificate for attending this training.

Course Reviews

"Most important items I’ve learned: Different IEEE specs, how to deal with coverage, and different test techniques."

Marwin van de Hoeve - Nexperia

"Good starting for analog DfT; it gives a helicopter view of what is going on with Analog DFT testing. I now have a starting point on reading to go in-depth. For me especially analog design, the part on how to check the fault coverage, how to improve and how to handle it."

Paulo Lookman - Nexperia

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