Efficient loopback test for aperture jitter in embedded mixed-signal circuits

Accurate measurement of aperture jitter for high-speed data converters is a difficult problem, since aperture jitter should be precisely separated from other jitter components as well as additive noise. This problem results in low test accuracy and high-yield loss. This paper presents a novel methodology for accurately predicting aperture jitter using a cost-effective loopback methodology. By using an efficient spectral loopback scheme, aperture jitter is precisely separated from input jitter and clock jitter as well as additive noise present in the DUT. Hardware measurement results show that this approach can be effectively used to predict the aperture jitter of a DUT, with an 89% reduction in the prediction error compared with previous approaches. �� 2011 IEEE.received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Kerala, India, in 1970 and the M.S. degree in electrical engineering and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering and computer science from Stanford University, Stanford, CA, in 1971 and 1974, respectively. From 1975 to 1988 he was on the faculty of the University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois. He is currently on the faculty in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Texas, Austin. He is also Director of the Computer Engineering Research Center and holds the Cockrell Family Regents Chair in Engineering. His research interests include VLSI design and test, formal verification, and fault-tolerant computing. He is the principal investigator of several contracts and grants in these areas, and a consultant to industry and government on testing and fault-tolerant computing. He has over 300 publications, and has been included in a list of the most cited researchers in the world. He has supervised more than 60 Ph.D. dissertations. He is particularly proud of the accomplishments of his students, many of whom occupy senior positions in academia and industry. Prof. Abraham has been elected Fellow of the ACM, and is the recipient of the 2005 IEEE Emanuel R. Piore Award. He has served as Associate Editor of several IEEE Transactions, and as chair of the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Fault-Tolerant Computing