A bist solution for the test of I/O speed

A delay-locked loop (DLL) based built-in self test (BIST) circuit has been designed with a 0.18 mum TSMC process (CM018) to test chip I/O speeds, specifically, the setup and hold times of I/O registers or buffers. The frequency lock range of the DLL is 150-600 MHz (4x). The DLL uses a combined phase detector and charge pump circuit (PD+ CP) for increased speed and reduced jitter. The DLL also employs an eight-stage shift averaging voltage-controlled delay line (VCDL) to improve the matching between delay stages and thus to equalize the delay of each individual stage. The locking failure or false locking problems are alleviated by using a start-control circuit.