Signature Analysis for Testing, Diagnosis, and Repair of Multi-mode Power Switches

Power-gating structures for intermediate power-off modes offer significant power saving benefits as they reduce the leakage power during short periods of inactivity. However, reliable operation of such devices must be ensured by using adequate test methods. We propose a signature analysis technique to efficiently test power-gating structures that provide intermediate power-off modes. In particular, the proposed technique can be used to test and diagnose an efficient multi-mode power-gating architecture that was proposed recently. In addition, we propose a methodology to repair catastrophic and parametric faults, and to tolerate process variations. Analysis and extensive simulations demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.