15 Best Books on Digital and Mixed Signal Testing

“Essentials of Electronic Testing for Digital, Memory and Mixed-Signal VLSI Circuits (Frontiers in Electronic Testing)” by M. Bushnell and Vishwani Agrawal Book Review: This book serves as a foundation for VLSI design, covering semiconductor device technology, circuit design, and electronic testing. Electronic testing has a long history, with experts holding large meetings and workshops, with over 100 books dedicated to testing. While a full seminar on testing is only offered at a few universities, this book presents all types of electronic circuits, including systems on a chip with digital, memory, and mixed signal subsystems. It is suitable for undergraduate students taking a course on electronic testing, providing techniques needed for testing and covering current trends in the field. This is the first textbook to cover all three types of electronic circuits.

“Analog and Mixed-Signal Boundary-Scan: A Guide to the IEEE 1149.4 Test Standard (Frontiers in Electronic Testing)” by Adam Osseiran Book Review: This book goes beyond the IEEE Standard 1149.4 by including the thoughts of its creators. The original writings of Brian Wilkins, Colin Maunder, Rod Tulloss, Steve Sunter, Mani Soma, Keith Lofstrom, and John McDermid were edited by Adam Osseiran, who made only minor changes to preserve the original style. This book explains how the testing of a system cannot be achieved by testing its individual parts, and how testability must be integrated into the system design. The previous IEEE Standard 1149.1 provided a design for testing digital VLSI chips, but the new Standard 1149.4 expands the design to mixed-signal systems that include both analog and digital chips.

“Mixed-Signal Methodology Guide” by Jess Chen and Michael Henrie Book Review: The book offers a comprehensive overview of the design, verification, and implementation methodologies needed for modern mixed-signal designs. It covers emerging trends and challenges in mixed-signal design, analog abstraction using behavioral models, assertion-based metric-driven verification techniques for analog and mixed-signal circuits, as well as low-power intent verification. In addition, it outlines the methodology for concurrent mixed-signal design and handling advanced node physical effects. The book includes practical examples of models and techniques and aims to be a valuable reference for analog, digital, and mixed-signal designers, verification and physical implementation engineers, and managers who seek better methodologies to address the challenges of contemporary mixed-signal design

“Digital Systems Testing and Testable Design (Electrical Engineering, Communications, and Signal Processing)” by Miron Abramovici Book Review: This updated edition of the leading textbook and reference in advanced systems testing and testable design provides comprehensive and cutting-edge coverage of the field. It includes extensive discussions of test generation, fault modeling for both classic and new technologies, simulation, fault emulation, design for testability, built-in self-test, and diagnosis. With numerous problems included, this book is essential for test experts, ASIC and system designers, and CAD engineers. Advanced engineering students will also find this book a valuable resource to stay current with recent developments in the field.

“Mixed-Signal Circuits (Devices, Circuits, and Systems)” by Thomas Noulis Book Review: This is a comprehensive book that covers advanced design techniques and process technology required to develop complex mixed-signal circuits. It discusses topics such as signal integrity, simulation, verification, and testing, as well as modeling aspects such as reliability, variability, and crosstalk. The book provides strategies to quickly move analog into the digital space and minimize common trade-offs between performance, power consumption, simulation time, verification, size, and cost. It also covers various approaches for low-power designs, fast interfaces, PLLs, VCOs, ADCs, and biomedical channels. Blended Signal Circuits is a must-read for anyone involved in the mixed-signal circuit design for future technologies.

“Essential of Electronics Testing for Digital Memory and Mixed Signal VLSI Circuits” by Michael L Bushnell Et Al Book Review: This an informative and comprehensive textbook on electronic testing. The book covers the foundations of VLSI circuits and their subsystems, including digital, memory, and mixed signal circuits. It is a valuable resource for undergraduate students taking a foundations course on electronic testing, as well as professionals seeking to improve their understanding of VLSI circuits. The authors provide clear explanations and practical examples, making the material accessible to readers with varying levels of expertise.

“Demystifying Mixed Signal Test Methods” Book Review: This book takes an applications-oriented approach to mixed signal testing, rather than a theoretical and mathematical one. It covers generally applied devices and systems such as PLLs and DSP, and thoroughly cites sampling theory. The book aims to develop an inherent understanding of mixed signal testing methodologies.

Book Review: This book offers readers an in-depth exploration of IEEE standard 1149.4, providing advanced information and concepts in a comprehensive, chapter-by-chapter format. The author highlights the importance of organized testability within a system and presents an architecture for digital VLSI chips, which can be seamlessly integrated into a testable system. While the book emphasizes the compliance of digital chips with the standard, it also cautions that this alone cannot guarantee the testability of a system. In addition, the book provides a detailed architecture for mixed signal systems, ensuring that readers have a thorough understanding of the topic.

“Model Engineering in Mixed-Signal Circuit Design” Book Review: This book combines VHDL-AMS hardware description language with model representation and characterization methods and tools for the extraction of model methodologies in mixed-signal circuits and systems. It offers an updated perspective of model engineering in mixed-signal circuit design.

“Mixed-Signal Layout Generation Concepts” Book Review: This book offers insight into available layout algorithms, high-level placement and routing methods, and principles and techniques required to develop and implement layout generation tools to accommodate mixed-signal layout generation requirements. It includes various examples and pseudo codes and is suitable for graduate and undergraduate level students.

“An Introduction to Mixed-Signal IC Test & Measurement” Book Review: The book presents a brief yet comprehensive summary of tests for analog, radio-frequency, and mixed-signal circuits, along with an extensive exploration of the benefits of mixed-signal IC testing to manufacturers. It features examples from the industry to illustrate individual circuit tests and large-scale mixed-signal circuits. The book caters to engineering professionals, as well as graduate and undergraduate students.

“Test and Diagnosis of Analogue, Mixed-Signal and RF Integrated Circuits” Book Review: This book offers a complete analysis of automatic testing, diagnosis, and tuning of mixed-signal, analogue, and RF integrated circuits and systems in one source. It also covers the latest advancements and future research opportunities in this field. Additionally, it discusses other fundamental areas, from circuit components to test issues. This book is suitable for senior undergraduate or postgraduate students seeking an in-depth understanding of the subject.

“Analog Signal Generation for Built-In-Self-Test of Mixed-Signal Integrated Circuits” Book Review: This book presents the basic principles of BIST, a highly effective signal generation technique. It begins with a summary of traditional signal generation methods and subsequently explores how digital logic and D/A conversion can be used to produce precise analog tones. It also delves into piece-wise linear waveforms and multi-tone testing strategies that minimize hardware requirements. The target audience for this volume includes circuit designers, test engineers, and researchers interested in IC testing techniques.

“Test and Design-for-Testability in Mixed-Signal Integrated Circuits” Book Review: The contents of this book combine foundational concepts with novel perspectives on the testing and design of analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits. It covers various essential and advanced topics, such as standardization with emphasis on IEEE 1149.4, fault-driven methodologies, effective employment of CAD test and DSP-based test tools, utilizing high-level description techniques for design-test integration, and well-defined categories of integrated blocks. The authors utilize illustrations and examples to elucidate the concepts of Built-In-Self-Test and Design-for-Testability from an analog standpoint. This book is useful for anyone interested in the testing and design of integrated circuits.

“DSP–Based Testing of Analog and Mixed–Signal Circuits (Systems)” Book Review: This book offers solutions to frequently asked questions regarding the operation of machines based on digital signal processing (DSP). It provides an explanation of the function of DSP in the process and demonstrates how it operates in real-world testing scenarios using mathematical concepts instead of derivations. Additionally, the book presents challenging test questions and answers that arise from the intersection of automatic test equipment (ATE) and DSP. It offers a theory of DSP-based testing that outlines how to approach a problem, solve it, and evaluate whether it is functioning correctly.