On-chip IR drop detectors for functional and test mode scenarios, circuits, processes and systems
First Claim
1. An integrated circuit comprising:
- a functional circuit having a power grid with a set of power grid points for monitoring; and
an electronic monitoring circuit includinga variably operable reference circuit responsive to an input register and having an output;
comparison circuitry having plural outputs, and having a first input coupled to the output of said variably operable reference circuit and a set of second inputs each second input coupled to a respective one of said power grid points;
an output register having at least two register bit cells respectively fed by the plural outputs of said comparison circuitry; and
a control circuit coupled to operate said input multiplexing circuit to progressively select power grid points at least one at a time.
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Accused Products
Abstract
An integrated circuit includes a functional circuit (10) having a power grid (20) with a set of power grid points (30.i) for monitoring; and an electronic monitoring circuit (100) that has a variably operable reference circuit (150) responsive to an input register (155) and having an output, comparison circuitry (110) having plural outputs and having a first input coupled to the output of said variably operable reference circuit (150) and a set of second inputs each second input coupled to a respective one of said power grid points (30.i); and an output register (120) having at least two register bit cells (120.i) respectively fed by the plural outputs of said comparison circuitry (110.i). Other integrated circuits, and processes of testing and of manufacturing are also disclosed.
19 Citations
32 Claims
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1. An integrated circuit comprising:
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a functional circuit having a power grid with a set of power grid points for monitoring; and an electronic monitoring circuit including a variably operable reference circuit responsive to an input register and having an output; comparison circuitry having plural outputs, and having a first input coupled to the output of said variably operable reference circuit and a set of second inputs each second input coupled to a respective one of said power grid points; an output register having at least two register bit cells respectively fed by the plural outputs of said comparison circuitry; and a control circuit coupled to operate said input multiplexing circuit to progressively select power grid points at least one at a time. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
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17. A process of testing an integrated circuit having scan chains and a power grid, the process comprising:
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scanning in a scan pattern into at least one of the scan chains; comparing the voltage for different power grid points with a reference and providing the comparison results to scan registers; varying the reference and repeating the comparing; and when the comparison results satisfy a test criterion, then storing a value representing the reference thus varied as a test result;
wherein the providing of comparison results to scan registers includes data gating each register such that once it registers a comparison result indicating an excessive IR drop, it holds that result thereafter in a current run of the process for that scan pattern and value of the reference. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23)
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24. An integrated circuit comprising:
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a functional circuit having a power grid with a set of power grid points for monitoring; and an electronic monitoring circuit including; a variably operable reference circuit responsive to an input register and having an output, wherein said variably operable reference circuit includes an input multiplexing circuit having inputs for the power grid points and at least one output to at least part of said comparison circuitry; a comparison circuitry having plural outputs, and having a first input coupled to the output of said variably operable reference circuit and a set of second inputs each second input coupled to a respective one of said power grid points; and an output register having at least two register bit cells respectively fed by the plural outputs of said comparison circuitry. - View Dependent Claims (25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32)
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Specification