Details of Grant 

EPSRC Reference:	GR/J56905/01
Title:	BUILT IN SELF TEST FOR SWITCHED CURRENT MODE DEVICES
Principal Investigator:	Taylor, Professor G
Other Investigators:	Bell, Dr IM Hall, Dr A
Researcher Co-Investigators:
Project Partners:
Department:	Electronic Engineering
Organisation:	University of Hull
Scheme:	Standard Research (Pre-FEC)
Starts:	01 August 1993	Ends:	31 July 1995	Value (£):	55,720
EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:	Electronic Devices & Subsys.
EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:	No relevance to Underpinning Sectors
Related Grants:
Panel History:
Summary on Grant Application Form
(i) To investigate the applicability of current monitoring for unified test and diagnosis of switched current devices.(ii) To determine the practicability of designing switched mode devices to be reconfigurable to allow built-in current sensing and built-in test vector generation during test.Progress:The switched-current technique is an analogue discrete time signal processing technique fully compatible with digital CMOS VLSI technology, which can be regarded as a true mixed signal methodology.Early work concentrated on demonstrating how the addition of extra switches in a design could be used to make that design reconfigurable for test purposes. In the test configuration any design is reduced to a comparison of equal length chains of memory cells which were thus amenable to standard test approaches obviating the need for test pattern generation and fault simulation for each new design. The approach is not one which offers concurrent test since the circuit is not in its functional configuration during the test procedure. Additional test strategies are also required to ensure that the complete functional circuit, as opposed to its constituent memory cells, is defect free.A second approach has been investigated in which signals generated as part of the normal memory cell configuration are sequentially scanned and compared during functional operation of the device thus offering concurrent test. Simulation has demonstrated that this method provides excellent coverage of defects without compromising device performance. It is intended to confirm the latter via fabrication of a simple device before the end of contract.
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Organisation Website:	http://www.hull.ac.uk