Applicability study on fault diagnostic methods for analog electronic systems

In this article, a comprehensive investigation to the current fault diagnostic methods for analog circuits is conducted. The ideas of these methods are described. Some key capabilities of these methods for analog circuits are taken into account, which include the capabilities of detection, location and identification, the capabilities of detecting single fault or multiple faults and soft faults or hard faults, the capabilities of diagnosing linear circuits or nonlinear circuits, etc. Then, what kinds of methods are applied to the built-in test (BIT) for electronic systems is investigated. At last, summary and future work on the research are presented.