Practical active compensation techniques for ATE power supply response for testing of mixed signal data storage SOCs

Abstract

We will demonstrate the effectiveness of power supply active compensation techniques in mixed signal device performance testing. Read channel speed sorting for data storage SOCs is used to illustrate how we minimize the power transient effect in ATE test, where read-channel current draw varies drastically between different mission-modes and power-saving-modes. These active compensation ideas are critical when decoupling improvement alone cannot reduce the transients to acceptable levels. Compared to other publications, we are focusing on minimizing large device functionality-induced transients; instead of peak power consumption with ATPG generated tests.