An Architecture for Self-Test of a Wireless Communication System Using Sampled IQ Modulation and Boundary Scan

An architecture for system-levl self-test of a wireless communication transceiver integrates the functional (parametric) self-test of the radio frequency (RF) subsystem, and the structural self-test of the digital subsystem. The digital subsystem is tested using extensions of the IEEE1149.1 Boundary-Scan standard to verify connections within circuit boards and between boards. The RF subsystem is tested using a digitally-modulated signal (as opposed to a sinusoidal tone) as the test stimulus, and using samples from the receiver digitizer as test data. This loopback test scheme imposes a relatively small overhead on the RF system design.