Electrothermal Design Procedure to Observe RF Circuit Power and Linearity Characteristics with a Homodyne Differential Temperature Sensor
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abstract
The focus in this paper is on the extraction of RF circuit performance characteristics from the dc output of an on-chip temperature sensor. Any RF input signal can be applied to excite the circuit under examination because only dissipated power levels are measured, which makes this approach attractive for online thermal monitoring and built-in test scenarios. A fully differential sensor topology is introduced that has been specifically designed for the proposed method by constructing it with a wide dynamic range, programmable sensitivity to dc, and RF power dissipation, as well as compatibility with CMOS technology. This paper also presents an outline of a procedure to model the local electrothermal coupling between heat sources and the sensor, which is used to define the temperature sensor's specifications as well as to predict the thermal signature of the circuit under test. 2010 IEEE.