Diagnosis of Defects in Analog Circuits Using Neural Networks

DIAGNOSIS OF DEFECTS IN ANALOG CIRCUITS
USING NEURAL NETWORKS

SEMINAR ON DATA MINING AND MACHINE LEARNING
APPROACHES FOR SEMICONDUCTOR TEST AND DIAGNOSIS
SUMMER TERM 2014

PRIYADHARSHINI UVARAJ
M.Sc. INFOTECH

Supervised by
Dr. RAFAL BARANOWSKI
Examined by
Prof. Dr. rer. nat. habil. Hans-Joachim Wunderlich

Seminar talk given on 14.05.2014

ITI: Data Mining and Machine Learning Approaches for Semiconductor Test and
Diagnosis
Topic: Diagnosis of defects in analog circuits using neural networks

Priyadharshini Uvaraj Page 1

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

1. Introduction 2
2. Analog circuit diagnosis 3
2.1 Fault model 4
3. Fault classification with neural network 4
3.1 Modular Diagnosis 5
4. Pre-processing and feature selection 7
4.1 Wavelet transform 7
4.2 Principal component analysis and normalization 9
4.3 Feature selection 10
5. Neural network synthesis 11
5.1 Construction 11
5.2 Training phase 12
6. Experimental evaluation 14
6.1 Experimental setup 14
6.2 Diagnostic accuracy 15
6.3 Comparison of traditional and modular approach 17
7. Conclusion 17

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1. Introduction
The motivation for research in fault diagnosis of analog circuits is that the analog circuits are
difficult to diagnose due to poor fault models, component tolerances, and nonlinear effects.
Due to the complex nature a concrete relation between the fault and the consequence cannot
be drawn. To do so, it requires an engineer to have some detailed knowledge of the circuits
operational characteristics and experience in developing diagnostic strategies. Unlike digital
circuits which have stuck-at-one or stuck-at-zero fault models, analog circuit lack good fault
model due to non-linear effect. If, for example, parameter value of any component in a circuit
changes by any factor, it doesnt mean that the circuits output change by the same factor
necessarily. It implies that the relationship between circuit component characteristics and
circuit response is non-linear. This again enhances the point of requiring an engineers
detailed knowledge. As a result, analog fault detection, identification and diagnosis are still a
time-consuming process. [1]
The diagnosis was carried on different basis. They can be classified as rule based, fault model
based, behavioural model-based. Rule based systems requires the experience of skilled
diagnosticians to form rules in form IF symptoms, THEN faults [8]. The disadvantage is
that it can only locate the faulty block in a larger system and it cannot diagnose faulty
components down to component level. Behavioural-model-based techniques rely on
generating an approximate behavioural model of the circuit. During fault diagnosis, this
reference model is sampled until its response and the faulty response of the circuit are
matched. The component is found after the response is matched. A major disadvantage of this
method is that the search of the match can be computationally intensive. The fault model
technique is based on the prior generated fault hypothesis/assumption. A fault dictionary is
prepared which contains fault measurement pairs (fault and its output response) which are
generated by sequentially simulating the circuit by inducing single fault at a time. During
diagnosis the fault dictionary is used to find faults. [8]
The application of machine learning such as neural networks for diagnosis of faults in analog
circuit is appealing as it requires no model or comprehensive examination of these faults.
Neural networks can be trained to diagnose single or multiple faults in linear or non-linear
circuits as long as the features associated with these faults are separable from each other.
Neural networks overcome many difficulties associated with analog fault diagnosis and they
offer a very promising approach to future advance in this area.
The backpropagation algorithm is used to train the neural network. This means that the
artificial neurons are organized in layers, and send their signals forward, and then the errors
are propagated backwards. Once the network is trained, the online fault detection and
diagnosis are fast. [4]
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The report is organized in the following order. The overall methodology in analog circuit
diagnosis and fault model is described in section2. The fault classification using neural
network and modular diagnosis are described in section 3. Pre-processing techniques are
described in section 4. Neural network construction and training phase are described in
section 5. Experimental evaluation and Diagnostic accuracy are discussed in section 6.
2. Analog circuit diagnosis
The objective of the study is to diagnose the defects in analog circuits. The diagnosis of
defects in analog circuits is challenging due to poor fault model, non-linear effects, and
tolerances of the component in the analog circuit. These difficulties are overcome by a
machine learning approach which gives the system the ability to learn and acquire knowledge
through which the diagnosis made easier without comprehensive model. The diagnosis is
done by training the machine learning algorithm with pre-determined data. Machine learning
algorithm learns the dependencies or pattern that exists between the input and output through
this training. Using this knowledge it predicts the output for new value of input. The
diagnosis is done for parametric faults in the analog circuit. Parametric Fault in general can
be stated as the variation in the value of the component with respect to its nominal value
which can cause change in the output of the circuit. Fault model is obtained by inducing a
single fault at a time in the circuit and measuring the response. Fault model helps to identify
target faults.
The diagnosis is done by applying an impulse to the circuit under test and measuring the
response. Depending upon the fault induced in the circuit the impulse response of the Circuit
under Test (CUT) changes. This different faulty component forms the fault class and the
impulse response of the CUT forms the features. The classifier is trained using these data.
The steps in the diagnosis of the analog circuit are given in figure 1:
Circuit Under
Test
Features
Preprocessing
Classifier
Impulse
signal
Fault
Class
Fig 1. Diagnosis of analog circuit. [9]
1) The input stimulus/signal is applied to the circuit under test. The output/response of
the circuit is measured which constitutes features.
2) This process is done for various faulty and non-faulty conditions. The output response
can be node voltages, transient response or frequency response of the circuit. The
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selection of type of output to be extracted/measured from the circuit depends on the
uniqueness of output with respect to the faults in the circuit. Along with uniqueness,
computational overhead has to be kept minimum.
3) Once the features are extracted from the analog circuit, it is pre-processed to reduce
the input space.
4) With the input features and output (the fault class corresponding to it) are defined
from the previous steps, a fault model is constructed and a classifier is trained based
on that.
5) The classifier is trained in such a way that during testing phase, it should be able to
identify the fault depending on the test data.
The classifier specified can be realized using many methods. One of the methods is neural
network which is used because of various advantages like robustness, strong learning ability.
This learning ability makes the neural network acquire knowledge and this knowledge is used
to predict the fault during testing phase. The back propagation is used in the training of the
neural network that is used as classifier here. Back propagation neural network is most
popular and simple approach used to identify or detect patterns. Through the predetermined
features and fault class, the neural network tries to learn a pattern with which it can identify
fault class for new inputs.
2.1 Fault models
Fault model identifies the target faults in the analog circuits. Fault in analog circuit can be
categorized into two types. Catastrophic faults, Parametric faults. Open nodes, short between
nodes, other topological changes in a circuit are catastrophic faults. Parametric faults are the
changes in parameters with respect to its nominal values outside its tolerance limits. These
are soft faults and hard to test for. Fault model is obtained by the following way. The first
step in ensuring valid fault model is to inject fault to the circuit under test. The fault model is
obtained by varying each component of the circuit and keeping other parameters within their
range and simulating using impulse signal. These extract the fault to the circuit level. The
behaviour of good and faulty circuit is developed from the simulation results.
3. Fault classification with neural networks
The classifier in fault diagnosis is realised using neural network. Artificial neural network is
machine learning approach that can be used to detect and extract complex pattern by training
them to do so with pre-determined samples. It consists of interconnection between neurons in
many layers such as input layer, hidden layer, and output layer. The number of layers in the
neural network depends on the complexity of the system. The layers are interconnected via
weights. The neural network is characterised by the interconnection between layers and
training phase by which the network acquire knowledge.
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Fault classification with neural network in analog fault diagnosis is done by building a
network from set of input features extracted from CUT and output fault class which forms
input and output layer respectively. During training the input features are applied to the
neurons in the input layer which is directed to the output fault class.
There are two phases in neural network. Training phase and the neural network learns the
fault model from the pre-determined input features output fault class which constitutes the
training set. Hence through this phase, the neural network has learnt the pattern between
features and fault class. Thus in testing phase, if a new input features is given; the network
has the ability to identify correct fault class through its acquired knowledge.
Neural
Network
Features 1
Features 2
Features 3
Features 4
Fault 1
Fault 2
Fault 3
Fault 4
Fault 5

Fig 2 Artificial Neural Network
Fault diagnosis in analog circuit using neural network is done in a following way. Initially an
impulse signal is applied to the circuit under test and output of the circuit is obtained. The
output differs depending on the various parameter faults in the circuit. These outputs are
called as features. These features along with the fault class associated with it are used to train
the back propagation neural network. The features that are obtained from CUT may not be
optimal as they might be noisy, redundant and contains dynamic range. The features are
hence pre-processed before it is used to train the neural network.
3.1 Modular diagnosis
The problems in diagnosis of fault diagnosis using traditional approach are as follows: When
the electronic circuit is not divided into modules, the neural network tries to identify the
faulty component in the entire circuit. Hence if the size of the circuit or the number of fault
increases, then the size of neural network increases. The problem with such case is there are
sometimes similar faults which give same features that form the input layer of neural
network. It is important to distinguish such similar faults with acceptable overlap in the
feature. In traditional approach it is sometimes impossible to achieve this distinction between
fault classes. This makes the training of neural network, a failure and diagnosis impossible.
Moreover once the fault is identified the next obvious step is to replace it. If the circuit is
large it is rather difficult to replace those components.
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The difficulties stated above can be overcome by modular approach. Modular approach is a
method where the large circuit is subdivided into several modules. If there is a fault in the
circuit, when it is divided into modules the faulty component resides in any one of the
module. In this way, the complexity of identifying the fault in the entire circuit is reduced
now into searching the faulty module. When the module is divided into submodule, a neural
network is trained to identify faulty module. Once the faulty module is identified, the other
modules are eliminated. The faulty module is further subdivided into sub modules and a
neural network is again trained to identify the faulty sub module. This process continues till
the faulty component is identified. The number of neural network required is proportional to
number of divisions done at the various levels.
In this way, the neural network size is reduced which makes the training phase easier. In
general, there are always similar faults that have an extensive overlap in the features. The
problem is to make distinction between similar faults. This is overcome by distributing the
similar faults, among different submodules by division. In this way, the training is made
easier as the similar faults are not in same module. The process of identifying similar fault
can be done using statistical method like mean, standard deviation between the features.

Module 1
Module 2
NN trained to
identify faulty
module
Level 1
Training
Sub Module 1.1
Sub Module 1.2
NN trained to
identify faulty
module
Module 1
Sub Module 2.1
Sub Module 2.2
NN trained to
identify faulty
module
Module 2
Level 2 Training
Till faulty component is
identified

Fig 3 Modular Diagnosis of analog circuits [3]
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A two-level example of modular approach to neural network training is shown in Fig. 3. At
level 1, the circuit is divided into two modules, which, in turn, are subdivided into two
submodules at level 2. At level 1, when the circuit is divided into submodules the neural
network is trained to identify faulty module. Once the faulty module is identified, that module
is again subdivided into sub-modules at level 2. Once again a neural network is trained to
identify which module has the fault. This is done till circuit component level.

4. Preprocessing and feature selection
The features that are obtained from the output of the circuit under test for parametric faults
may not be optimal for training the neural network. The features may have dynamic range of
values and all the features will not give distinction across fault class. In addition to it there
might exist a lot of features to select for training the network. Preprocessing solves this
problem by selecting the optimal features and also reduces the input features for the neural
network. Preprocessing is effective method to simplify neural network architecture and
minimize the training and processing time. There are three techniques employed for this.
1) Wavelet transform is used to reduce the number of inputs drastically.
2) Principal component analysis is used to reduce the input space dimension. It can also
select input features.
3) Normalization removes the variance over the values in the input space which tend to
undermine the relevant data fed to neural network.
4.1 Wavelet transform
The features that are obtained might not be optimal. The features must be distinct for
different fault class. In order to extract the uniqueness of features from the impulse response,
wavelet transform is performed. Wavelet transform is signal processing method that is used
to represent the signal in both time and frequency domain. Discrete wavelet transform (DWT)
is used to decompose the continuous signal into a series of wavelets. Wavelets are functions
defined over a finite interval and having an average value of zero. These wavelets are
obtained from a single prototype wavelet called the mother wavelet, by dilations or
contractions (scaling) and translations (shifts). Mother wavelet is a prototype for providing
windows to analyses the signal. A window function can be referred to a specific interval in
which a signal is analyzed when the signal has its maximum energy in that particular interval,
but outside which its value is zero. Translation corresponds to the time information. And
scaling refers to the frequency information. The decomposition of signals gives rise to
approximation and details coefficients. The approximation coefficients represent the high-
scale, low-frequency components of the signal. The detail coefficients represent the low-
scale, high-frequency components of the signal.
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The selection of mother wavelet is critical for the analysis of impulse response of CUT. The
mother wavelet selection is based on the closeness/similarity between the impulse response of
CUT and the mother wavelet. The Haar wavelet is chosen as the mother wavelet as it gives
several advantageous features. The two wavelet properties that are needed to select suitable
mother wavelet are support and regularity. Support is a measure of the wavelet duration time
domain and regularity is a measure of discontinuity. Since haar wavelet has very compact
support and it is highly discontinuous function it is very well suited for extracting features
from the impulse response of CUT.
The Discrete wavelet transform can be implemented as iterated filter bank technique. That is
the transform can be viewed as recursively passing the signal into high pass and low pass
filters respectively. Filtering in terms of mathematics can be considered as convolution of
impulse response of the filter and the signal. The approximation and detail coefficients are
basically obtained by passing the samples through low pass filter g and high pass filter h at
level 1 respectively as shown in the figure. The obtained output is same as the number of
samples that are passed through filters. Hence it is down sampled every time it passes through
a filter to remove the redundant data. Down sampling makes the number of wavelet
coefficients is reduced by a factor of two at each level of filtering. This is done to preserve
the data.
h 2
g 2
h 2
g 2
h 2
g 2
Signal
Detail coefficients at level 1
Approximation coefficients at level 3 Approximation coefficients at level 3
Approximation coefficients at level 2
Approximation coefficients at level 1

Fig 4.Hierarchical decomposition of a signal into approximation and details. [1]

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At level 1, the time resolution is reduced as half the signal is removed and the frequency
resolution is increased. This procedure is called as subband coding. At level 2, the
approximation coefficients are further decomposed into details and approximation
coefficients. After second level of decomposition the frequency resolution is further
increased. By continuing this process, it is possible to get desired level of frequency or time
resolution. The level of decomposition depends upon the requirement of application.
In this study this is determined by the factor of distinct features of impulse response that is
needed for training the neural network. Hence after analysing the details or approximation
coefficients, and determining which of the coefficients gives distinct features, the optimal
features are selected.
Mathematically the approach is accomplished using shifted and scaled versions of the so-
called original (mother) wavelet as

()
) (1)
In this equation, a and b define the degree of scaling and shifting of the mother wavelet
respectively. The scaling and shifting value a and b are chosen as power of 2 which is
known as dyatic analysis for DWT. The coefficients of expansion C (a, b) for a particular
signal can be expressed as
C (a, b) = { a, b (x) ()
() (
) (2)
These coefficients give a measure of how closely correlated the modified mother wavelet is
with the input signal. In equation (2) I(x) represent the impulse signal of CUT and the
integration is performed over all possible x values where x is time. Wavelet analysis in its
discrete (dyatic) form assumes a=
and b=k
=ka, where (j, k)
where j is the level of

decomposition [10].
The main advantage of preprocessing the output of CUT using wavelet transform is to reduce
the number of inputs to the neural network by reducing the redundant data which is
accomplished by down sampling.
4.2 Principal component analysis and normalization
Principal components analysis is mainly used to reduce the complexity of the neural network
employed in the fault classification problem. It is a dimensionality reduction technique. This
is a technique used to convert the high dimensional data to low dimensionality data without
losing essential information. It uses the dependencies between the variables to do so. It is
done by taking a x vectors in d dimensional space and summarize by projecting them down to
z vectors in M dimensional space keeping M < d.
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It is one of the most robust ways of doing dimensionality reduction. Principal component
analysis accounts for change of basis in useful way with that basis accounting for noise
reduction and revelation of various dynamics in the features. The summary will be the
projection of the original vectors on to a direction, where the Principal components span the
subspace.
Normalisation is a procedure followed to bring the features closer to the requirements of the
algorithms, or at least to pre-process data so as to ease the neural network algorithms job.
Building a neural network between the features extracted and their associated fault class is
made easier when the set of values to predict is rather compact. The linear scaling is done to
avoid large dynamic and the features are made to fit into a specific range. The PCA and
normalization is used preprocess two or more inputs features differing by several orders of
magnitude.
4.3 Feature selection
The wavelet coefficients are obtained from the wavelet transform performed on the impulse
response of the CUT. The wavelet coefficients are selected as features for training the neural
network. The feature selection plays a vital role in the diagnosis by eliminating redundant or
irrelevant features. The feature selection involves selection of optimal wavelet coefficients
which best distinguish the features across fault class. It makes the training effective and
improves interpretability of the neural network. Selecting approximation coefficients as
features ensures that the training and testing data are immune to any noise that may be
induced due to the fault diagnostic system. Any noise resulting from circuit output occurring
at high frequencies is relatively complicated to eliminate and are consequently blocked out by
the low-pass filtering effect associated with the approximation coefficients. To select
candidate features from approximation coefficients, their distinction across fault classes are
examined by comparing the means and standard deviations they take in every class. Wavelet
coefficients that take similar values across fault classes are eliminated, and those that remain
distinct across two or more fault classes are kept as candidate features. PCA will further
eliminate those features that do not show significant variation across fault classes leading to a
set of optimal features for training and testing the neural network. There are certain
guidelines for selecting wavelet coefficients as features to train the neural network. [1]
1) The signal is recursively decomposed into sufficiently high levels of approximation
and detail to expose the low and high frequency features of the signal respectively.
The PCA is further used to reduce the number of features and enhance the differences
among fault classes.
2) The approximation and detail reflect the low and high frequency contents of a signal
respectively. The low frequency contents usually give a signal its basic structure,
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while the high-frequency contents provide its details. As a result, the approximation
coefficients are selected as features.[1]
According to these guidelines, optimal features for training a neural network are obtained by
first selecting candidate features from wavelet coefficients. This is achieved by examining the
approximation and detail that expose the low- and high-frequency contents of the signal at
every level of decomposition. The wavelet coefficients associated with these levels then form
all the possible features for diagnosis. Generally speaking, approximation coefficients are
appropriate features for analog fault diagnosis since they represent the low-frequency
contents or basic structure of a signal and they are immune to noise. Details capture the high-
frequency contents of a signal and are not appropriate for representing its main features.

5. Neural network synthesis
There are several neural network architectures available for classification problems. Among
these, the most intuitive and reliable architecture is one whose outputs estimate the
probabilities that input features belong to different fault classes. The two layer feed forward
network is used for this purpose. This is achieved by setting the number of output layer
neurons equal to number of faults as shown in the figure.

5.1 Construction
A two-layer feed-forward neural network, has as many outputs as there are fault classes, is
used for this purpose. A feed forward network is a specific type of neural network where the
layers interconnected in forward direction from input to the output as shown in figure 5. The
input layer in the neural network constitutes the pre-processed features by wavelet transform,
PCA and normalization where features are the outputs that are extracted from the circuit
under test by applying impulse response. The output layers, as mentioned above are fault
classes. In addition to these two layers, two layer feed forward has a hidden layer. It is called
as they are not accessible. The function of the hidden layer is to extract the importance of
features from the input neurons. The hidden layer is sigmoid function. The sigmoid function
is selected as the activation function because the activation function should be non-decreasing
and differentiable.
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Feature 1
Feature 2
Feature 3
Feature 4
Input Layer
Hidden Layer Output Layer
Fault
Class 1
Fault
Class 2
Fault
Class 3

Fig 5 Architecture of two layer feed forward network. [2]

5.2 Training phase
Training a neural network is to make the network acquire knowledge through a learning
process by providing training set of sample data which are pre-determined. The training is
done by updating weights and bias of the network by comparing the neural network output
with the desired output (fault class). There are two types of learning: Supervised training and
unsupervised learning. Supervised training is a process where the neural network is trained
using predetermined training data. Unsupervised training is training without any such training
data.
Training data consists of input-output pairs. {(
)}
= input features of neural network
= Desired fault class output

N = No of sample pairs fed to the neural network.
The training of neural network for fault diagnosis in analog circuit is done by back
propagation algorithm. Back propagation algorithm involves two stages.
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Forward stage: The weights of the neural network are fixed and the features propagate
through the network and give an output from which the error between the output and desired
output is calculated.
Backward stage: The error is now propagated back to the network giving this algorithm the
name back propagation. During this phase the weights are adjusted to minimize the error
between actual and desired output fault class, where output here is the fault class.
Mathematically this is done by applying gradient descent to a sum of square error function.
The error function is given by

)}
(3)
S2-Feature class/fault class.
The error value is calculated from this equation and weights are adjusted in the neural
network to minimize it. This is done by adjusting the weights in the direction of negative
gradient (slope) of E.
The steps involved in the training of the neural network using back propagation algorithm
are,
1) The features from the training set are propagated through the neural network.
2) The output is calculated from the sum of the weighted inputs and sigmoid function of
the hidden layer which acts activation function. Activation function defines the output
for the given input.

(4)

(5)
= weights associated with the input

3) The output fault class is compared with the desired output and the error is calculated.
4) The derivative of the error with respect to weight is calculated.
(6)
= Change in error with respect to output fault class
= Change in output with respect to weighted sum

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= Change in weighted sum with respect to individual weights.

From (5)
(7)
From (4)
=y (1-y) (8)
From (3)
={
)} (9)
From (3, 4, 5)
)}*(y (1-y))*

()
5) The change in weight is calculated from the following equation
(10)
is the learning rate which has the value between 0 and 1. Learning rate is generally
the fraction of error that is removed. Choosing the value of learning rate plays
important role. If chosen low value, then the time to learn the weights will be too
long. If chosen a high value, the algorithm tends to oscillate.
6) The output is calculated using the updated weights and in turn error is calculated and
the weights are adjusted again to minimize the error
7) This process is continued until the neural network output fault class is equal to desired
fault class so that the
which means the neural network is trained.

The advantage of using back propagation algorithm is that it is simple, though slow in
procedure and easy to implement. Once the training phase is completed, now the network is
fed with test data where test data are new feature values. The trained neural network will
classify output fault class correctly for the applied featured.
5. Experimental evaluation
The experimental evaluation is done on the basis of classification of fault class with accuracy
and neural network size as it is gives the complexity of the whole diagnostic process. The
ability to distinguish between the different fault classes based on the output response of the
circuit is considered a major factor on evaluating this algorithm.
5.1 Experimental setup
The sallen key bandpass filter is used to validate the algorithm stated above. Using the
appropriate neural network architecture discussed in the previous section, the test inputs are
assigned to the fault class with the highest probability as measured by the neural network
outputs. The nine fault classes (eight faulty components and the no-fault class) associated
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with the SallenKey bandpass filter require a neural network with four inputs, six first-layer
and eight output-layer neurons. The nominal values for the components which results in a
centre frequency of 25 kHz are shown in the figure. The resistors and capacitors are assumed
to have tolerances of 5% and 10% respectively.

Fig 6 25 kHz Sallen key bandpass filter [1, 2, 3]
The sample circuit are sampled with impulse response and fed to a neural network with pre-
processing. The approximation coefficients from levels 1 through 5 are selected as features to
train the neural network. The impulse response of the circuit with R3; C2, R2, and C1
varying within their tolerances, belong to the no-fault class (NF) and are fed to the
preprocessors for feature selection. When any of the four components is higher or lower than
its nominal value by 50% with the other three components varying within their tolerances,
faulty impulse responses are obtained. These faulty impulse responses are similarly fed to the
preprocessors for feature selection and form the fault classes R3 ; R3 ; C2 ; C2; NF; R2
; R2 ; C1 ; andC1 ; where and stand for high and low, respectively. For instance, R3
fault class corresponds to R3=3k; with C2, R2, and C1 allowed to vary within their
tolerances. [1]
5.2 Diagnostic accuracy

This experimental evaluation indicates that the neural network when pre-processed give
optimal features and distinction across fault class. Each graph in the figure 7 corresponds to
one feature for the nine fault class in the order of C1 ; C1; C2; C2; NF ; R2 ; R2 ; R3
; R3 ;
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Fig 7. Features and fault classes associated with sallen band-pass key filter [2]

The range of values for the five features corresponding to 9 fault class is plotted in terms of
mean and standard deviation. The mean and standard deviation is obtained for each feature
and fault class from SPICE simulation and actual circuit output. The blue points indicate
result using SPICE simulation and black points gives the actual circuit output. The graphs
clearly show that the features can clearly distinguishes between fault classes. For example the
fifth graph in figure 7 shows it can clearly distinguish between C2 and C2.

The graph indicates the neural network cannot distinguish between the NF and R2 fault
classes. This becomes evident during the testing phase when neural network outputs
corresponding to these two faults take similar values for features belonging to both class.
These two fault classes are combined into one ambiguity group and eight output neurons are
used accordingly. Now the neural network can correctly classify 97% of the test data. The
reason NF and R2 fault classes are similar is because they produce similar outputs from
CUT. The examination of the circuit reveals that these two fault classes have transfer
functions in which corresponding terms are different by at most 8.5% assuming nominal
values. However, In an actual circuit with all components having standard tolerances of 5%
to 10%, the two transfer functions become similar. As a result, based on features extracted
NF and R2 classes cannot be separated. [2]

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5.3 Comparison of traditional and modular approach

The comparison clearly indicates that the modular approach requires network that are many
times smaller than the traditional method. This significant reduction in size leads to effective
training and improved performance which is clear from the accuracy indicated below.
However the modular approach is advantageous there is certain trade off to be done between
smaller size neural network, efficient training, reliable performance and the necessity to train
several neural networks which is time consuming.

Table 1: Comparison of traditional and modular approach [3]
Traditional Modular
Classification
accuracy
97% 100%
Network size 86 43
Size reduction -200%

6. Conclusion
The diagnosis of analog circuits due to the poor fault models, non-linear effects and tolerance
variation is challenging. These difficulties are overcome by machine learning as it requires no
comprehensive fault model. Neural network is used because of its robustness. Neural network
once trained, it makes the diagnostic process of analog circuits much easier. The input space
and architecture size are reduced due to the preprocessing the circuit output. The trained
neural network is capable of robust fault diagnosis and can correctly classify almost 95% of
the test data associated with sample circuits described [2]. The advantage of modular
approach is that it has the ability to break down a classification problem into several simpler
problems with small neural network. The modular approach significantly enhances the
efficiency of the training phase and the performance of the fault diagnostic system.

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References
[1] M. Aminian and F. Aminian, Neural-network based analog circuit fault diagnosis using
wavelet transform as preprocessor, IEEE Trans. Circuits Syst. II, vol. 47, pp. 151156, Feb.
2000.

[2] F. Aminian, M. Aminian, and B. Collins, Analog fault diagnosis of actual circuits using
neural networks, IEEE Trans. Instrum. Meas., vol. 51, no. 3, pp. 544550, Jun. 2002
[3] F. Aminian and M. Aminian, A Modular fault-diagnostic system for analog electronic
circuits using neural networks with wavelet transform as a preprocessor, IEEE Trans.
Instrum. Meas., vol. 56, pp. 1546-1554, Oct 2007

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Diagnosis of Defects in Analog Circuits Using Neural Networks

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Diagnosis of Defects in Analog Circuits Using Neural Networks

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DIAGNOSIS OF DEFECTS IN ANALOG CIRCUITS

USING NEURAL NETWORKS

=ka, where (j, k)

where j is the level of

= input features of neural network

= Desired fault class output

= weights associated with the input

= Change in error with respect to output fault class

= Change in output with respect to weighted sum

= Change in weighted sum with respect to individual weights.

which means the neural network is trained.

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