Evaluation of effectiveness of median of absolute deviations outlier rejection-based I/sub DDQ/ testing for burn-in reduction

CMOS chips having high leakage are observed to have high burn-in fallout rate. I/sub DDQ/ testing has been considered as an alternative to burn-in. However, increased subthreshold leakage current in deep submicron technologies limits the use of I/sub DDQ/ testing in its present form. In this work, a statistical outlier rejection technique known as the median of absolute deviations (MAD) is evaluated as a means to screen early failures using I/sub DDQ/ data. MAD is compared with delta I/sub DDQ/ and current signature methods. The results of the analysis of the SEMATECH data are presented.