Bridging faults in BiCMOS circuits

Combining the advantages of CMOS and bipolar, BiCMOS is emerging as a major technology for many high performance digital and mixed signal applications. Recent investigations revealed that bridging faults can be a major failure mode in IC's. Effects of bridging faults in BiCMOS circuits are presented. Bridging faults between logical units without feedback and logical units with feedback are considered. Several bridging faults can be detected by monitoring the power supply current (I(sub DDQ) monitoring). Effects of bridging faults and bridging resistance on output logic levels were examined along with their effects on noise immunity.