TABLE OF CONTENTS In contrast to the vast amount of research and published information on digital logic testing, the volume of information concerning analogue testing is very small. Indeed, most available textbooks that deal with electronic testing make no mention of analogue circuits, concentrating instead on the more pervasive digital testing theory and practice. This text also will be seen to be predominately digital, which, unfortunately, reflects the historical emphasis in this subject area in spite of the world being analogue in nature.
As introduced in Chapter 1, analogue-only systems are not generally characterised by having a large number of circuit elements (macros), but instead have relatively few but individually more complex elements to build the required system. The basic circuit design of such elements (amplifiers, filter networks, comparitors, etc.) is covered in many excellent teaching textbooks [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8], but to optimise the design of monolithic macros for production purposes is much more specialised, requiring a great deal of experience and in-house knowledge. Most OEM designers, therefore, use wherever possible predesigned commercially-available circuits, the system design being one or other of the following techniques:
PCB assemblies of commercial off the shelf items such as operational amplifiers, etc.;
uncommitted analogue arrays, dedicated to the required system specification by the final custom metalisation mask(s);
full-custom IC designs, invariably designed by a vendor or specialist design team.
Details of (ii) and (iii) may be found in the published literature dealing with custom microelectronics (ASICs or USICs), but...
