Device for monitoring the supply voltage on integrated circuits

An electronic component comprising:

• contact pins for supplying a supply voltage including voltage carrying pins and ground pins;
• local voltage carrying lines and local ground lines inside the electronic component connected to at least one voltage carrying pin and ground pin, respectively;
• communication contact pins for communicating signals;
• signal carrying leads inside the electronic component, each communication contact pin being connected to at least one signal carrying lead;
• boundary scan means including a chain of interconnected shift cells, each shift cell associated with one or more signal carrying leads inside the electronic component, for reading out a monitoring result;
• and
• a device for locally monitoring the supply voltage including at least one voltage monitor, the voltage monitor including an extreme value detector connected to one of said local voltage carrying lines and local ground lines at a voltage monitoring position inside the electronic component,
• wherein one of said shift cells included in the chain of interconnected shift cells is connected to receive an output signal from the device for locally monitoring the supply voltage.

An electrical device comprising:

• conductive paths and components electrically connected to the conductive paths,
• the conductive paths including paths for supplying a supply voltage including a voltage carrying path and a ground conductor path,
• the components including:
• communication pins for communicating signals;
• a combination of at least two voltage carrying pins and at least one ground pin, or a combination of at least two ground pins and at least one voltage carrying pin, the at least one voltage carrying pin and the at least one ground pin being in electrical contact with the same voltage carrying path and the ground conductor path;
• a local voltage carrying line and a local ground line inside the device connected to at least one voltage carrying pin and ground pin, respectively;
• signal carrying leads inside the device, each signal carrying lead being connected to at least one communication pin;
• and
• a device for locally monitoring the supply voltage including at least one voltage monitor, the voltage monitor including an extreme value detector connected to one of said local voltage carrying line and said local ground line at a voltage monitoring position inside the device.

An electrical component board comprising:

• conductive paths and components electrically connected to the conductive paths,
• the conductive paths including paths for supplying power including a voltage carrying path and a ground conductor path,
• the components including:
• contact pins for receiving power supplied to each component including voltage carrying pins and ground pins, and
• communication pins for communicating signals,
• at least one component including;
• local voltage carrying lines and local ground lines inside the at least one component connected to at least one adjacent voltage carrying pin and ground pin, respectively;
• signal carrying leads inside the at least one component, each signal carrying lead being connected to at least one communication pin of the at least one component;
• and
• a device for locally monitoring the supply voltage including at least one voltage monitor, the at least one voltage monitor including an extreme value detector connected to one of said local voltage supply line and said local ground line at a voltage monitoring position inside the component board.