Self-correcting, self-testing circuits and systems for post-manufacturing yield improvement

This paper presents a self-correcting and self-testing approaches for post manufacturing yield improvement of RF circuits embedded in the RF systems. In the proposed approaches, the test signature is self-generated from the Device-Under-Test (DUT) with the help of some additional circuitry. This self-generated test signature is analyzed by using on-chip resources for testing and controlling the DUT's calibration knobs to compensate for multi-parameter variations in the manufacturing process. Thus, the proposed approaches enable the self-healing (self-test and self-correction) for parametric defects in the DUT. This paper also presents the calibration algorithm based on performance curves, which enables the tuning of the DUT's calibration knobs for the yield improvement after the testing of the DUT is performed. Although this calibration algorithm is demonstrated for the healing of RF amplifier and RF mixer, this algorithm can also be used for other kind of circuits as well. The proposed approaches are demonstrated by simulations results of an RF amplifier and RF mixer. The hardware prototype of the self-healing RF LNA is also presented.