Method and apparatus for high accuracy measurement of vlsi components

Abstract From the Canadian patent

Methods and apparatus for accurately measuring propagation delay through very high speed VLSI devices with a test instrument having errors comparable to the delays being measured. The VLSI device has a plurality of parallel operational signal paths, each with a very short propagation delay, The VLSI device is fabricated with control circuitry for selectively connecting the parallel operational signal paths in series in a test mode so as to define a test signal path comprising multiple operational signal paths. The test signal path has a relatively long propagation delay which can be measured with acceptable accuracy by the test instrument. The test signal path is defined so that it bypasses …