Test mode method and strategy for RF-based fault injection analysis for on-chip relaxation oscillators under EMC standard tests or RFI susceptibility characterization

Abstract

Nowadays some microcontroller clock circuits have been implemented using relaxation oscillators instead of quartz type approach to attend cost effective designs. The oscillator is compensated over temperature and power supply and trimming during device test phase adjusts the oscillation frequency on target to overcome process variations. In that way, the relaxation oscillator becomes competitive with regard to ceramic resonator options. However, robust applications as industrial, automotive and aero spatial, requires aggressive EMC tests reproducing the behavior in these environments. High levels of RF interference introduce frequency deviation, jitter or clock corruption causing severe faults on the application. This work discusses the impact of RF interference in relaxation oscillators proposing a strategy to implement test mode in microcontrollers and other complex SOCs, allowing yet characterization and fault debug. Theoretical analysis and experimental results with a silicon implementation are presented and discussed.