Testkey detection circuit

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2020194321-A1
Application number	US-201916249812-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jan 16, 2019
Priority date	Dec 13, 2018
Publication date	Jun 18, 2020
Grant date	—

Abstract

The invention provides a testkey detection circuit, including a plurality of oscillators and a driving circuit. Each of the oscillators has an enable terminal, a voltage terminal and an output terminal, wherein the enable terminals are connected to a common enable terminal. The driving circuit receives the output terminals of the oscillators and increases a driving level of a selected one of the output terminals as a frequency output.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A testkey detection circuit, comprising:
a plurality of oscillators, each of the oscillators having an enable terminal, a voltage terminal and an output terminal, wherein the enable terminals are connected to a common enable terminal; and a driving circuit, receiving the output terminals of the oscillators and increasing a driving level of a selected one of the output terminals as a frequency output.

2 . A testkey detection circuit, comprising:
a plurality of oscillators, each of the oscillators having am enable terminal, a voltage terminal and an output terminal, wherein the enable terminals are connected to a common enable terminal; and a driving circuit, comprising:
a multiplexer, receiving a plurality of frequency signals from a plurality of output terminals of the oscillators and outputting a selected one of the frequency signals;
a divider, decreasing a frequency of the selected one of the frequency signals as a frequency-decreased signal; and
a buffer, receiving the frequency-decreased signal to increase the driving level as a frequency output.

3 . The testkey detection circuit according to claim 2 , wherein the multiplexer comprises a plurality of selection terminals to select the one of the frequency signals.

4 . The testkey detection circuit according to claim 2 , wherein the driving circuit comprises a voltage source terminal to receive a voltage source to commonly provide the voltage source to the multiplexer, the divider and the buffer, and the testkey detection circuit is commonly grounded to a ground voltage.

5 . The testkey detection circuit according to claim 2 , wherein the oscillators are ring oscillators.

6 . The testkey detection circuit according to claim 2 , wherein the multiplexer sequentially outputs the frequency signals according to a selection order, so as to sequentially obtain a plurality of the frequency outputs.

7 . The testkey detection circuit according to claim 2 , wherein the oscillators are respectively operated in different conditions.

8 . The testkey detection circuit according to claim 2 , wherein the voltage terminals of the oscillators provide different voltage sources.

9 . The testkey detection circuit according to claim 2 , wherein the voltage terminals of the oscillators respectively probe a plurality of contact pads at different circuit positions in integrated circuits.

10 . The testkey detection circuit according to claim 2 , wherein the oscillators are a plurality of ring oscillators, and the ring oscillators are identical circuits or circuits in which at least one of the ring oscillators is different from the others.

11 . The testkey detection circuit according to claim 2 , wherein the driving circuit comprises a single voltage input terminal to provide an operation voltage to the multiplexer, the divider and the buffer.

Assignees

• United Microelectronics Corp

Inventors

• Wu Kun-Yuan
• Wang Wei-Jen
• Chen Chien-Fu
• Hsu Chen-Hsien
• Chen Yuan-Hui
• Chen Ruei-Yau
• Ku Cheng-Tsung
• Huang zhi-hong
• Tsai Cheng-Yang
• Chen Yu-Lin

Classifications

• H10W46/00

  Marks applied to devices, e.g. for alignment or identification · CPC title

• H10P74/277 Primary

  Circuits for electrically characterising or monitoring manufacturing processes, e.g. circuits in tested chips or circuits in testing wafers · CPC title

• G01R31/2884

  using dedicated test connectors, test elements or test circuits on the IC under test (G01R31/2855 takes precedence) · CPC title

• G01R31/2831

  Testing of materials or semi-finished products, e.g. semiconductor wafers or substrates (G01R31/318511 takes precedence; testing during manufacture H10P74/00) · CPC title

• G01R31/2801 Primary

  Testing of printed circuits, backplanes, motherboards, hybrid circuits or carriers for multichip packages [MCP] (G01R31/318508 takes precedence; contactless testing G01R31/302; testing contacts or connections G01R31/66) · CPC title