Time domain testing of large nonlinear circuits

This paper presents a new approach to analog and mixed mode testing based on a decomposition technique. Voltage measurements placed at the partition points are used to reduce the effect of a faulty element to a local area, thus facilitating the test. Limiting the effect of a fault to a local area allows the separation of digital and analog parts as their analyses do not have to be performed simultaneously. In the proposed testing technique measurements play an active role not only on the assessment of circuit functionality but on the circuit simulation as well. The authors present the description of their method for time domain testing. The method can be extended for the measurements of harmonic components of the periodic response. They discuss the nonlinear system equations and sensitivity approach, then introduce the decomposition approach. The test procedure of the proposed approach is given