A robust 130 nm-CMOS built-in current sensor dedicated to RF applications

In this paper we present a design methodology that allows a dramatic reduction of the dependency on process variation, yielding to a new version of this BICS. Taking advantage of a 130 nm VLSI CMOS technology, the proposed BICS has a peak-to-peak dispersion lower than 10% of its output full-scale range. It makes it more suitable to implement the test functionality while maintaining the initial BICS intrinsic performances. The built-in self-test methodology is illustrated by monitoring the supply current of Low-Noise Amplifiers (LNAs). Measurements confirm the BICS's transparency relative to the circuit-under-test (CUT) and its accuracy.