A BIST Scheme for RF Power Amplifiers

One can find today system-on-chip devices comprisingalso radio-frequency blocks. These highly integrated circuitsraise extraordinary challenges for testing, jeopardizingthe low cost requirements associated often to theseproducts. A built-in self test scheme for RF power ampli-fiers based on a polynomial fitting approach is proposedhere, which takes advantage of the existing local oscillator,up-conversion mixer, and pre-driver, allowing for low areaoverhead and performance degradation. Simulation andexperimental results for gain and linearity (1 dB compressionand third order interception points) obtained with aGaAs distributed amplifier are presented which confirm thevalidity of the method. The BIST scheme proposed for implementingthis method on-chip is then described, togetherwith preliminary simulation results