Lokesh Avala

Date of Graduation

2014

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

MS

College

Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources

Department

Lane Department of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering

Committee Chair

Gyungsu Byun

Committee Co-Chair

Gyungsu Byun

Committee Member

Yaser Fallah

Committee Member

David Graham

Abstract

A method for non-destructive, wireless testing of integrated circuits(ICs) is presented in this thesis. This system is suitable for applications which require testing after the manufacturing of ICs. According to Moore's Law the number of transistors in an IC doubles every two years, the current probing equipment will also have to reduce its size accordingly which will be difficult after a certain point. The proposed system relies on near field communication in order to transfer data between probe and device under test. The probe and IC will include small antenna and a transceiver circuit. The antenna and the transceiver circuit can be integrated into the device without affecting the real estate and performance. Major advantages of non-destructive probing include no damage to the pads of test chip, higher test frequencies and less maintenance which will lead to higher pin densities. The antenna and transceiver circuit to be incorporated on the test chip are completely CMOS compliant.;The presented system here is a prototype which consists of a transceiver circuit along with an ultra-wideband antenna. The system was implemented in IBM 180nm CMOS process. The transceiver circuit communicates at a high frequency of 21.5GHz which in turn reduces the area consumed by the antenna and the transceiver circuit. The results obtained for our system show that an energy efficient wireless interconnect has been successfully implemented for future non-destructive testing applications.

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