Parametric Fault Testing of Non-Linear Analog Circuits Based on Polynomial and V-Transform Coefficients

This paper is an exposition of recent advances made in polynomial coefficient and V-transform coefficient based testing of parametric faults in linear and non-linear analog circuits. V-transform is a nonlinear transform that increases the sensitivity of polynomial coefficients with respect to circuit component variations by three to five times. In addition, it makes the original polynomial coefficients monotonic. Using simulation, the proposed test method is shown to uncover most parametric faults in the range of 5–15 % on a low noise amplifier (LNA) and an elliptic filter benchmark. Diagnosis of parametric faults clearly illustrates the effect of enhanced sensitivity through V-transform. Finally, we report an experimental validation of the polynomial coefficient based test scheme, with and without V-transform, using the National Instruments’ ELVIS bench-top testbed. The result demonstrates the benefit of V-transform.