Process monitor for monitoring an integrated circuit chip
AssigneeBroadcom Corporation
InventorsLawrence M. Burns, Leonard Dauphinee, Ramon A. Gomez, James Y.C. Chang
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Abstract
A system or apparatus for monitoring an Integrated Circuit (IC) chip, comprises: a sense circuit at least partially constructed on the IC chip and configured to produce one or more sense signals each indicative of a corresponding process-dependent circuit parameter of the IC chip; and a digitizer module configured to produce, responsive to the one or more sense signals, one or more digitized signals each representative of a corresponding one of the sense signals. A controller is configured to determine a value of one or more of the process-dependent circuit parameters based on one or more of the digitized signals.
Claims46
A system for monitoring an Integrated Circuit (IC) chip, comprising:
- a sense circuit at least partially constructed on the IC chip and configured to produce one or more sense signals each indicative of a corresponding process-dependent circuit parameter of the IC chip;
- and
- a digitizer module configured to produce, responsive to the one or more sense signals, one or more digitized signals each representative of a corresponding one of the sense signals.
A system for monitoring an Integrated Circuit (IC) chip, comprising:
- sense circuit means, at least partially constructed on the IC chip, for producing one or more sense signals each indicative of a corresponding process-dependent circuit parameter of the IC chip;
- and
- a digitizer means for producing, responsive to the one or more sense signals, one or more digitized signals each representative of a corresponding one of the sense signals.
A system for monitoring an Integrated Circuit (IC) chip, comprising:
- a sense circuit at least partially constructed on the IC chip and configured to produce
- a first sense signal indicative of a process-dependent circuit parameter of the IC chip,
- a second sense signal indicative of a temperature of the IC chip, and
- a third sense signal indicative of a power supply voltage of the IC chip.
A method of monitoring an Integrated Circuit (IC) chip, comprising:
- (a) producing one or more sense signals each indicative of a corresponding process-dependent circuit parameter of the IC chip;
- and
- (b) producing, responsive to the one or more sense signals, one or more digitized signals each representative of a corresponding one of the one or more sense signals.
A method of monitoring an Integrated Circuit (IC) chip, comprising:
- (a) producing a first sense signal indicative of a process-dependent circuit parameter of the IC chip;
- (b) producing a second sense signal indicative of a temperature of the IC chip;
- and
- (c) producing a third sense signal indicative of a power supply voltage of the IC chip.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.