Nonlinearity characterization of temperature sensing systems for integrated circuit testing by intermodulation products monitoring

J Altet; D Mateo; X Perpiñà; S Grauby; S Dilhaire; X Jordà

doi:10.1063/1.3633957

Nonlinearity characterization of temperature sensing systems for integrated circuit testing by intermodulation products monitoring

Rev Sci Instrum. 2011 Sep;82(9):094902. doi: 10.1063/1.3633957.

Authors

J Altet¹, D Mateo, X Perpiñà, S Grauby, S Dilhaire, X Jordà

Affiliation

¹ Electronic Engineering Department, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, C/ Jordi Girona 1-3. Campus Nord UPC, 08034 Barcelona, Spain. [email protected]

PMID: 21974611
DOI: 10.1063/1.3633957

Abstract

This work presents an alternative characterization strategy to quantify the nonlinear behavior of temperature sensing systems. The proposed approach relies on measuring the temperature under thermal sinusoidal steady state and observing the intermodulation products that are generated within the sensing system itself due to its nonlinear temperature-output voltage characteristics. From such intermodulation products, second-order interception points can be calculated as a figure of merit of the measuring system nonlinear behavior. In this scenario, the present work first shows a theoretical analysis. Second, it reports the experimental results obtained with three thermal sensing techniques used in integrated circuits.