Patent ID: 7411409
Filing Date: 2008-08-12
Classification: G01R

Abstract:
1. An integrated circuit comprising at least one digital leakage detector, the digital leakage detector comprising digital circuitry configured to approximate a magnitude of the leakage current in a transistor of the integrated circuit and configured to generate a digital output representing the approximated magnitude, and wherein the digital output comprises a vector of bits captured in parallel by the digital leakage detector, wherein each bit in the vector is associated with a different possible magnitude of the leakage current, and wherein each bit is indicative in a first one of a binary one state and a binary zero state that the magnitude of the leakage current exceeds the associated magnitude, and wherein each bit is indicative in a second one of the binary one state and the binary zero state that the magnitude of the leakage current does not exceed the associated magnitude, and wherein a location of a transition within the vector from binary zero to binary one is indicative of the magnitude of the leakage current, to a granularity supported by the digital leakage detector.