A new low-cost RF built-in self-test measurement for system-on-chip transceivers

This paper presents a new RF built-in self-test (BIST) measurement and a new automatic-performance-compensation network for a system-on-chip (SoC) transceiver. We built a 5-GHz low noise amplifier (LNA) with an on-chip BIST circuit using 0.18-μm SiGe technology. The BIST-measurement circuit contains a test amplifier and RF peak detectors. The complete measurement setup contains an LNA with a BIST circuit, an external RF source, RF relays, 50-Ω load impedance, and a dc voltmeter. The proposed BIST circuit measures input impedance, gain, noise figure, input return loss, and output signal-to-noise ratio of the LNA. The test technique utilizes the output dc-voltage measurements, and these measured values are translated to the LNA specifications such as the gain through the developed equations. The performance of the LNA was improved by using the new automatic compensation network (ACN) that adjusts the performance of the LNA with the processor in the SoC transceiver.