A Built-in Scheme for Testing and Repairing Voltage Regulators of Low-Power SRAMs

Leonardo B. Zordan (1) , Alberto Bosio (1) , Luigi Dilillo (1) , Patrick Girard (1) , Aida Todri-Sanial (1) , Arnaud Virazel (1) , Nabil Badereddine (2)

1 SysMIC - Conception et Test de Systèmes MICroélectroniques
2 IMC - Intel Mobile Communications

Voltage regulation systems offer an efficient mechanism for reducing static power consumption of SRAMs. When the SRAM is not accessed for a long period, it switches into an intermediate low-power mode. In this mode, a voltage regulator is used to reduce the voltage supplied to the core-cell array as low as possible without data loss. Therefore, reliable operation of such device must be ensured by using adequate test techniques. In this work, we propose low area overhead built-in self-test (BIST) and built-in self-repair (BISR) schemes that can be embedded on the SRAM to automatically test and repair the voltage regulator. Simulation results prove the effectiveness of the proposed technique for detecting, diagnosing and repairing voltage regulators of low-power SRAMs.

Mots clés: Design for testability; Low-power design; SRAM; Memory test

Domaines: Electronique

Leonardo B. Zordan, Alberto Bosio, Luigi Dilillo, Patrick Girard, Aida Todri-Sanial, et al.. A Built-in Scheme for Testing and Repairing Voltage Regulators of Low-Power SRAMs. VTS: VLSI Test Symposium, Apr 2013, Berkeley, CA, United States. pp.1-6, ⟨10.1109/VTS.2013.6548894⟩. ⟨lirmm-00805366⟩