access icon free Temperature signatures for performance assessment of circuits with undesired equilibrium states

© The Institution of Engineering and Technology
Received 15/06/2015, Published 13/10/2015

The use of bidirectional temperature sweeping methods in a standard circuit simulator to determine the presence or absence of multiple equilibrium points in analogue circuits is discussed along with the need for start-up circuits to eliminate undesired stable equilibrium points. Signatures in the temperature characteristics of circuits that may have more than one equilibrium state in their resistive circuit and that are indicative of specific types of performance are identified. It is shown that circuits with some of these signatures present significant challenges for circuit simulation and verification when designed to operate at a single equilibrium point. It is also observed that circuits with some of these signatures can exhibit useful circuit properties but also provide vulnerability to harbour analogue hardware Trojans that can be very difficult to detect.

Inspec keywords: analogue circuits

Other keywords: analogue circuits; temperature signatures; multiple equilibrium points; bi-directional temperature sweeping methods; undesired equilibrium states; resistive circuit; performance assessment; start-up circuits; standard circuit simulator

Subjects: Analogue circuit design, modelling and testing; Analogue processing circuits

References

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      • 2. Wang, Y.-T., Chen, D., Geiger, R.L.: ‘Practical methods for verifying removal of Trojan stable operating points’. Int. Symp. on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), Beijing, China, May 2013, pp. 2658–2661.
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http://iet.metastore.ingenta.com/content/journals/10.1049/el.2015.2102
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