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US 5,969,653 AGranted
Testing control signals in A/D converters
AssigneeU.S. Philips Corporation
InventorManoj Sachdev
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AssigneeU.S. Philips Corporation
InventorManoj Sachdev
Estimating the term…
The invention relates to an integrated circuit, containing an A/D converter and a test circuit, the latter in a test mode enabling explicit testing of analog and digital control signals of the circuit by supplying these control signals to circuit sections of the A/D converter and thus generating digital data signals at the output of the A/D converter. Analog signals, like bias signals and reference signals, can be selected and supplied to the input facility of the converter. Subsequently, a digital representation of the selected signal is obtained at the output facility of the converter. Digital signals, like clock signals, can be selected and supplied directly to the output facility. The output facility is operated by a clock signal and constructs a clocked version of the selected digital signal, which is subsequently available at the output. Thus, selected signals, either digital or analog, are available at the output of the converter and can be compared to specified data.
An integrated circuit containing an A/D converter and a test circuit, the operation of said A/D converter being under control of a plurality of analog and digital control signals, one of the latter being a clock signal, said A/D converter including an input facility for receiving an analog input signal, an analog signal comparison circuit connected to the input facility which compares the analog input signal with a number of reference values and generates respective elements of a digital sequence, a digital conversion circuit connected to the analog signal comparison circuit for converting the digital sequence to a first digital data signal, and a digital output facility that is controlled by the clock signal and connected to the digital conversion circuit for outputting the first digital data signal, characterized in that said test circuit has a test mode for selecting at least one of said control signals to be supplied to one of said facilities, thus outputting a second digital data signal at the digital output facility representing the selected control signal for a subsequent test.
A method for testing an integrated circuit comprising an A/D converter and a test circuit, characterized in:
An integrated circuit containing an A/D converter and a test circuit, the operation of said A/D converter being under control of a plurality of analog and digital control signals, one of the latter being a clock signal, said A/D converter including an input facility for receiving an analog input signal, analog signal comparison means connected to the input facility for comparing the analog input signal with a number of reference values and thus generating respective elements of a digital sequence, digital conversion means connected to the analog signal comparison means for converting the digital sequence to a first digital data signal, and a digital output facility that is controlled by the clock signal and connected to the digital conversion means for outputting the first digital data signal, characterized in that said test circuit has a test mode for selecting at least one of said control signals to be supplied to one of said facilities, thus outputting a second digital data signal at the digital output facility representing the selected control signal for a subsequent test.
An integrated circuit, comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.