DUT Data Processing Unit for Precise Signal Synchronization
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Solution Overview
Problem
In automated test equipment, accurately synchronizing data and strobe signals across multiple chips is challenging due to propagation delays, leading to difficulties in capturing data correctly, especially when clock and data signals are separated and handled by different chips or boards.
Innovation Solution
A data processing unit with a time information provider to digitize clock or strobe signals, allowing for precise selection of data samples based on digitized time information, which is represented as a multi-bit value or increment-decrement information, enabling accurate synchronization and compensation of propagation delays.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If buffer delays are used to compensate propagation delay differences between strobe and data signals, then data capture accuracy can be improved, but device complexity and difficulty of delay matching increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent changes the fundamental parameter from analog delay adjustment to digital time-stamping. Instead of using buffer delays to physically adjust signal timing, the system captures time information as digital timestamps and uses digital processing to determine which data samples correspond to strobe transitions. This resolves the contradiction by improving data capture accuracy through precise time measurement while eliminating the complexity of analog delay matching.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces the mechanical/analog delay adjustment mechanism with a digital information processing system. Rather than physically delaying signals through buffers to match timing, the system uses digital time-stamping and logical processing to associate data with corresponding strobe events. This substitution eliminates the complexity of delay matching while maintaining or improving capture accuracy.
2Measurement precision
If propagation delay compensation is implemented across multiple chips, then synchronization accuracy can be improved, but the difficulty of detecting and measuring delays increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces time-stamping as an intermediary mechanism between the physical signal propagation and the logical association of data with strobes. By capturing the time information of strobe transitions as digital timestamps and transferring this information through the system, the patent simplifies the measurement and compensation of propagation delays across multiple chips, resolving the contradiction between synchronization accuracy and measurement difficulty.
3Productivity
If parallel testing of multiple DUTs is implemented to reduce production test time, then productivity increases, but propagation delay differences between channels increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a digital copy of the time information (timestamps) that represents the physical timing of strobe transitions. By capturing and transferring these time stamps digitally rather than relying on physical signal synchronization, the system can parallelize testing across multiple channels while maintaining accurate association between data and strobe events, thus resolving the contradiction between productivity and reliability.
Data Source
AI summary
A data processing unit has a time information provider for processing a clock or a strobe signal, configured to provide a digitized clock or strobe time information on the basis of the clock or strobe signal and at least one data extraction unit, coupled to the time information provider and configured to select data from a sequence of data samples of a data signal depending on the digitized clock or strobe time information.