Iddq-testable uni-directional master-slave
AssigneeU.S. Philips Corporation
InventorManoj Sachdev
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A flipflop has master and slave interconnected through a buffer. The master has its inverters located outside the signal path from input to output, as the buffer provides the driving capability required for both IDDQ-testing and operational use. This configuration enables IDDQ-testing without further circuitry added to the flipflop and reduces propagation delay in the signal path.
Claims10
A method of testing an electronic circuit that has at least one flipflop with a master and a slave, at least one of said master and slave having a bidirectional switchable coupling element in a signal path, said master and slave being interconnected via a controllable coupling, the method comprising quiescent current testing of the flipflop, characterized in that the method comprises:
- providing a unidirectional coupling from said master to said slave;
- and
- applying the quiescent current testing to the flipflop, the quiescent current testing comprising:
- determining the quiescent current after clock-controlled data transfer from the master to the slave.
An electronic circuit comprising a flipflop with a master and a slave interconnected via a controllable unidirectional coupling, wherein at least one of the master and the slave has a respective bi-directional switch in a signal path, and wherein the master comprises first and second inverters outside said signal path.
An electronic circuit comprising a master-slave flipflop having a master latch and a slave latch each having a bi-directional switchable transmission gate in a signal path, means for enabling quiescent current testing of said flipflop and comprising a unidirectional coupling from said master latch to said slave latch, wherein the master latch includes first and second inverters serially connected and outside of said signal path, and the slave latch includes third and fourth serially connected inverters and outside of said signal path.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.