Peter N. Ehlig

How (In)adequate is one-time testing

Peter Ehlig Texas Instruments, Inc. Stafford, Texas (pehlig@ti.com) I am often introduced as an expert in how integrated circuits work. This is not all tha; accurate. My field of expertise is in how integrated circuits fail and more specifically how they fail in end systems. I find this perspective biases my positions in a different direction from many experts in the fields of silicon test or silicon qualification. also cause issues. These noise events may come from localized current starvation or bus switching. The potential for noise events in the final system is nearly impossible to accurately model in a device design or production test environment. These events, coupled with subtle defects that did not fail the device production test, may later cause end system failures.

Integration options for signal processing systems

As system solutions move to volume production it is often necessary to integrate part or all of the solution. Integration may be done to lower cost, power or noise. Or it may be done to increase performance or even security of the system. This may be accomplished by migrating some hard wired logic to programmable devices and other logic to ASICs. However, integration becomes more difficult if the system includes a Digital Signal Processor (DSP), as the operating speeds increase while power limitations are lowered. Integrating memory with the processor is a possibility. However, this requires a line of DSP devices with varying amounts of memory. The paper examines different techniques for system integration. It includes discussions of advantages of the different techniques. The paper also discusses the required design environments and tools for integrating DSPs with other required circuits.

New Directions In DSP From Texas Instruments

This paper describes what Texas Instruments is doing to provide further advances in the three areas of market direction. The paper details how the company has, in the past, made advancements and suggests some future ideas under consideration. Please note that the future ideas, discussed in this paper, are speculative in nature and therefore none of these ideas should be construed as a plan to develop or offer any product or service by Texas Instruments. The future ideas sections are in italics. Please interpret these accordingly.