New on-chip screening of gate oxides smart power devices for automotive applications

Efficient screening procedures for the control of the gate oxide defectivity are vital to limit early failures especially in critical automotive applications. Traditional strategies based on burn-in and in-line tests are able to provide the required level of reliability but they are expensive and time consuming. This paper presents a novel approach to the gate stress test of lateral diffused MOS transistors based on an embedded circuitry that includes logic control, high voltage generation, and leakage current monitoring. The concept, advantages and the circuit for the proposed built-in gate stress test procedure are described in very detail and illustrated by circuit simulation.