Influence of PVT Variation and Threshold Selection on OBT and OBIST Fault Detection in RFCMOS Amplifiers

Abstract

Oscillation-based testing (OBT) and Oscillation-based built-in self-testing (OBIST) circuits enable detection of catastrophic faults in analogue and RF circuits, but both are sensitive to process, voltage and temperature (PVT) variation. This paper investigates 15 OBT and OBIST feature extraction strategies, and four approaches to threshold selection, by calculating figure-of-merit (FOM) across PVT variation. This is done using a 2.4 GHz LNA in $0.35 \mu \mathrm{m}$ CMOS as DUT. Of the 15 feature extraction approaches, the OBT approaches are found more effective, with some benefit gained from switched-state detection. Of the four approaches to threshold selection (nominal-ranged static thresholds, extreme-range static thresholds, temperature dynamic thresholds, and simple noise-filtered tone detection), dynamic thresholds resulted in the highest average FoM of 0.919, with the best FoM of 0.952, with a corresponding probability of test escape $P\left(T_E\right)$ and yield loss $P\left(Y_L\right)$ of $5 \cdot 10^{-2}$ and $1.89 \cdot 10^{-2}$ respectively but requires accurate temperature measurement. Extreme static threshold selection resulted in a comparable average FoM of 0.912, but with less susceptibility to process variation and without the need for temperature measurement. Binary detection of a noise-filtered oscillating tone is found the least complex approach, with an average FoM of 0.891.