QRUBIST: A Reliable Heart Rate Monitor ASIC

S.C. Roy1,H.T. Naglez,M.G. McNamel3, W.T. Krakow' 'MCNC - Center for Microelectronics * North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC

ot The MicroelectronicsCenter of N r h Carolina Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 email: roy@mcnc.org

Abstract
The design of a real-time heart rate monitor implemented as a single A plication Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC)is presented. e goal of the project was to implement T ! a QRS detection algorithm into a single chip environment. The testability strategies used to increase devicereliabilityincluding the implementation of Built-In S l Test (BIST) feaef tures are described. instrumentation can be made more accurate, and provide the hysician more information to improve diagnostic accuracy. kowever, the reliability and safety of the devices is often questioned with the increased complexity of modem medical instrumentation systems. This issue of reliability is quite important in most areas, but of tantamount importance when the device in uestion is used in a critical care situation. The use of BIST & o m the device to be tested, off-line or during power-up, to verify not only its h c t i o n , but also the device's structural integrity since some defect mechanisms, such as electro-migration and transistor threshold shifts, do not initially causeimproper devicefimction. Also,integration should increase overall system reliability and hence mean time between failure (MTBF). We present the design andverification ofthe QRS/BIST chip using the OASIS(R121 system with emphasis on testability strategies and device reliability. The methods chosen for implementation and the motivation for using Built-In Self Test (BIST) are described in detail. Background Physiology The heart can be electrically characterized by the electrocardiogram or ECG signal (Figurela-b). Each major section of this waveform has a function in controlling the mechanical motions of the cardiac muscle. The ECG is composed of 3 major sections, the P, QRS, and T waves. After the sinoatrial node fibers fire an activation pulse, the atria muscle depolarizes,initiating the P wave ofthe ECG signal. As the activation signal flows to the atrioventricular node, then to the Bundles of His and to the Purkinje Fibers, the ventricular muscles depolarize electrically causing the QRS complex of the ECG. Mechanically, these signals cause

Introduction
The current leader in fatal diseases in the U.S. is heart disease. Over 975,000 people die of a heart attack (cardiac arrest) each year [ll. Greater than 50%die within two hours after the attack. Initially, the attack may s t a r t as angina pectoris (chest pain), myocardial infarction (cardiac muscle death), congestive failure (failure to pump blood), or sudden death. Heart disease currently kills more men than women with men in the 40 50 year old category being most susceptible.

atedcircuit(A&C)chi environmentwithBuilt-InSelfTest &ST). Our use of BI& for Testibilit (DFT) results in a % y reliable r ! z c i M : ? % u, g t in whici physical defects in e device (resulting from manufacturing problems or wearout) can be detected anytime during the device's life cycle. With its implementation as a sin le integrated circuit, the system size can be minimized, a n f the complete instrument is realized with only a few discrete devices. The use of highly integrated medical instrumentation is a hotly debated issue. Most researchers agree it is important that with technology advancing at its current pace,

QRS detection al orithm in a single application specific inte-

The goal of this project was to implement a real-time

Figure 1 (a) Cardiac Electrical Pathways (b)Electrocardiogram Summation (Adapted from W.F. Ganong, Review of Medical Physiology, Appleton and Lange, 14th ed, pg 459,1989.)
~ x o ~ o ~ - e / e o ~ o o o o - ~ ~ ~ - ~ ~ ~ ~ ( o ) ~ l ~ e 0 oI E E E C e o

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the contraction of the ventricular muscles, which in turn causes blood to flow into the pulmonary and aortic arteries. The T wave originatm from electrid activity in the ventricular muscles when they repolarize and repare for the next contraction. his laet phase ofthe E & q p a l has tlo mechanical counterpart, and simp1 representa an electrical event. B d e t e c t q the QRS of the ECG aignal, m m y tienta that are auUcardiac agnonalitaes experienced b acterized b an absence of normal C@%mplexett can be detected and &us allowinterventional meamrestobe instituted to avoid the possible death of cardiac tissue and of the patient.

&

There are several approaches +at can be used to solve d e constraintson the reliability problem: (1)impoae de designers, 80 untwtable blocks wiU n o x used [4J;(2) implement the des otl a vehide speai6cally de ed for its testability a u P w ths CDC e~ gate m y [5l;Xan&or use built-in wif teat 18") Esattltes. For the design of the QRS chip, points 1 a n 3 we= chOaen[61.

6B

Derign For Testability Rules

The MCNC standard cell design philosophy revolves around strict adhereme to several design rules listed in Table 1 By strictly following these rules, s stem blocks can be . synthesized with high fault coverage. Tgese rules insure the controllability and obaervabilit of all 8 t h e s i d state machinecl. InedditionBuiltfnSehest @I&?) features were included. The BIST method chosen for inclusion was a version of the Circular Self-Test Path ~(CSTP) The, goal in im, le171. features was to rncreaae the devlce's reliabifity menting the~ the without 6ignScantly intr?&dngt cost of the design and without compromising devlce perfbrmance.

Motivation For Terrtability

DFT for ASICs is aseuming rnever increa role. In the past, a PCB designer could implement a r e l i ! system without incorporatiy DFT feature8 in the degign. Designs were highly observa le and wntmllable Bince most of the important signals were accessible by lo@ probes or becisfnmls testers. With an entire PCB Ainctlon now in rn ASIC, probing is not possible and must be rephd with DFT.
Every manuhcturer is interested in producin quality designere of new ASIC componente generally try to save area and improve performance, the manuf&tuers now ask them t o i n c l u d e t e s t a b i l i t y f ~ t ~ ~ Traditionally, chip speed and performance have alwa wonhelp out over testabiht in contests for silicon area. offeredby CAD tooG is still in e*perimental s s Further. more, many of the innovative circuits used% designers, t 'ng to save silicon area, produce deisigns which are untesx l e . These factors are just some of those which often limit ASIC chip reliability.
parts within their limited economic mwurc%s3 .&le 11

Circular Self Teat Path

&

i
(1)Synchronous clocking (2) No floating levels (3)No wired logic (4) 2 Phase non-overlapping clock (5) No gated clock signals

The Circular Self Test Path (CSTP) method [81[91 involves the reco of some of the sequential elements ofthecireuitintoi%?Yi ~ ~ u ~ q ~ ~ , ce s (Figure2). In a typical design, the YO buffers and aome of the intenul scannable latches are replaced by CSTP cells. The CSTP cells have 3 modes of operation ( n o d and two test modes). The first is a normal 2-phase master-slave D flip-flop. The second mode ie a serial scan mode. Normal serial scan terti mxdures can be used in this mode. The third mode is the%fST mode. During this test mode, all the CSTP cells are tied to ether to form a k-bit Multiple Input Si turn Register (MISh whch both a lies p a t t e r n to the S t and compresses them. The seRtest 1 mode uses all the CSTP aequential elements to form a MISR whose alias' probability is 2-L (where k is the number of CSTP cells i % chain). In addition, a serial input signature n e register (SISR) is used to further compress the data at the output. The SISRs aliasing robability is 2", where m is the number of fip-flops in the S~SR.
Stroud proposed the moving of the SISR to the feedback path to increase thc randomness of the feedback [71. This compressed response from the SISR will be used as the comparison si ature. The 17-bit SISR used to compress the test responseanas an aliasing error probability of 2 7 Our 1. implementation is highlighted in Figure 3.

Table 1 DFTRules .

Figure 2 C r u a Self-TestPath Flip Flop iclr

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summary

Combinational Logic

Why use BIST for the QRS detector ASIC? There is really one answer - to improve device reliability. We require a very high level of fault coverage for our QRS detector since it is to be used in critical care situations. The circular self-test ath (CSTP)BIST, which was used, has been shown to give a gh level of fault coverage [71[81[91.

Ei

The total integrated circuit design time from architectural definition to la out was approximatel 6 months, and the total silicon area &r the design is relativefy modest for the performance achieved. The design statistics, Table 2, show the increase in transistor count for design with BIST. The design size with the BIST circuitry, scannable and CSTF' flip-flops, is 45,544 transistors. The scan path overhead required by the OASISR) system is a proximately 5,000 transistors or 11%. The additional BISf transistor overhead is a proximately 6,400, or 14%. The t t l transistor penalty is t i u s an increase of 25%. oa The inclusion of testing circuitry also required four dedicated pins for control: 1)self-test mode; 2) scan mode; 3)scan in; and 4) scan out. The inclusion of both scan and CSTP in the design enables the QRS chip to be used as a vehicle for comparing device yield and defect levels to test coverage parameters. The lo 'c testing of the chi s will use three test sets: functional, O&XP scan, and CZTP. The resultant test data will be correlated with fault simulation data to evaluate current yield and defect prediction models used in industry. There are many uses for the QRS device as both a stand alone unit and in conjunction with a cardio-tachometer. As a stand alone unit, the monitor can be used for the detection of sudden infant death syndrome and for exercise monitoring. The unit in conjunction with a cardio-tachometercan be used for the monitoring of atients with known conditions such as skipped beats or doubre beats, and also as a secondarymonitor for the operatingroom and other critical care procedures. The implemented real-time QRS detection algorithm was designed and verified in a structured design environment. This project has used an integrated circuit implementation to reduce the size of a large, prototype system, making it a reliable system that could be used in many portable and personal applications. Ideally such a device could be beneficial for some of the 975,000 persons who die each year from heart attacks.

~~

Figure 3. CSTP implementation

Design Methodology A top-down design methodology was followed durin the design of the QRS chip. A behavioral model was designei in 'C' and extensively tested with the same data used in the evaluation of the algorithm. Once the model was correctly constructed, a functional model was developed to model the architecture of the system.

Several different chip architectures were considered during this hase based on several driving factors. The highest priorit Factors were that device testability should be high (greater J a n 90%) and the system should be highly integrated, so that only a minimal number of extra parts are needed. The architecture was defined in a loose fashion based upon this decision. Once an architecture was defined it was coded into Logic-ZZlllO], MCNC's hardware description lanY g e and tested. The final architecture was synthesized and ayed out using the MCNC OASIS(R) system. The oasis program is a supervisor shell that is used to run all tools necessary for a complete IC design from a finite state machine or netlist description. A target goal can be assigned when oasis is called, the supervisor will then run all the necessary programs to complete the assigned goal. The Logic-ZZZ silicon compiler is the OASISR)s stem front-end. Logic-ZZZallows the specification ofhighlevermodules such as finite state machines. In addition, gate level modules and interconnections between modules can be specified allowng the definition of a complete system in a single file. Logic-ZZI produces a two-level combinationallogicdescription inBerkeley PLA format file. decaf [11] takes PLA format input and transforms this description into an optimized netlist of standard cells. The cell netlist is o timized for area, timing, or a combination based on the cell ibrary desired. The ldvsim 1121 logic simulator was used during the ASIC design. Zdvsim is an event-driven mixed-mode simulator for MOS circuits. The Ldvsim system allows the m i ~ n of g 'C'level, gate level, and transistor descriptions in an open simulation environment. This feature allows verification of the QRS chip at the behavioral, gate level pre-layout, and transistor level post-layout stages in a unified environment. The upnr [13] (vanilla Placement aNd Routing) tool wasused togenerate the physicallayoutofthe QRSchip. vpnr is a standard cell placement and routing program using a quadrisection algorithm. The output of this program is a hierarchical layout in magic E141 format.

Technology Area Transistor Count Scan Overhead BIST Overhead Test Pin Overhead Maximum Clock Rate Fault Coverage Test Vectors

1.25pm CMOS 5.6 x 6.7 mmp 45,544

11%

14% 4 pins
20 MHz
998

522,000
Table 2 Design Statistics

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Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge Sandia National Labs and MCNC for their hancial support during this project.

References
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