Patent ID: 8519720

Claim:
A method for determining a local power supply impedance profile (|Z(f)|) at a predetermined load location within an electronic system, comprising: applying a repetitive activity to said load location at a selected duty cycle; evaluating a temporal behavior of a current consumption (I(t)) caused by said repetitive activity at said load location using an analytic technique that evaluates a selected number of harmonic components of said current consumption; said repetitive activity duty cycle and said selected number of harmonic components being chosen to influence impedance profile accuracy; calculating a corresponding frequency-domain current consumption profile (I(f)); measuring a local power supply voltage (U(t)) caused by said repetitive activity at said load location; evaluating a frequency-domain voltage profile (U(f)) of said measured local power supply voltage (U(t)); and calculating said local power supply impedance profile (|Z(f)|) from the magnitudes (|U(f)|, |I(f)|) of said voltage and current profiles (U(f), I(f)).