Texas Instruments Corporation

Iowa State University Research Foundation Inc

Kumar Lakshmi Parthasarathy

Turker Kuyel

Degang James Chen

Randall L Geiger

Le Jin

A method for testing a circuit includes determining at least one performance characteristic of the circuit based on a functional relationship between excitation signals or on a functional relationship between measurement devices. The method is implemented either as a part of a built-in self test circuit of an integrated circuit or for production testing.

Method for testing analog and mixed-signal circuits using functionally related excitations and functionally related measurements

A calibrated digital-to-analog converter (DAC) ( &prime;) has a main DAC ( ) having a digital input and an analog output. An on-chip memory ( ) stores measured INL values of the main DAC at a few selected input codes, and digital interpolation ( ) is used to approximate INL error values at all input codes ( ). To cancel the INL errors of the main DAC, outputs of this digital interpolation are sent to a calibration DAC ( ), which has an analog output subtracted from the analog output of the main DAC. This subtraction can also be done in the digital domain, removing the need for a calibration-DAC when a main DAC with higher bit-count is designed.

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Ames, IA, United States of America

Kumar Lakshmi Parthasarathy