Sensors, Vol. 26, Pages 64: A Fully Integrated Monolithic Monitor for Aging-Induced Leakage Current Characterization

Sensors doi: 10.3390/s26010064

Authors:
Emmanuel Nti Darko
Saeid Karimpour
Daniel Adjei
Kelvin Tamakloe
Degang Chen

This paper presents a precision, wide-dynamic-range leakage current sensor tailored for in-situ monitoring of aging mechanisms such as Time-Dependent Dielectric Breakdown (TDDB) in both active and passive components. The proposed architecture supports high-voltage stress and is fully monolithic, integrating a current-to-voltage front-end, tunable-gain amplifier, and a successive approximation register (SAR) analog-to-digital converter (ADC). To validate the concept, a discrete-component prototype was implemented and evaluated across a leakage current range of 1 nA to 1 μA. The sensor achieves 12-bit resolution with measured integral non-linearity (INL) and differential non-linearity (DNL) within ±1.5 LSB and ±0.3 LSB, respectively. Compared to prior monitors, the design enables linear current digitization and supports high-voltage stress, features essential for accurate and scalable TDDB characterization. Applications include embedded reliability monitoring in power converters, analog building blocks, and large-scale aging test arrays.

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Emmanuel Nti Darko www.mdpi.com