Reliability of integrated overtemperature sensors in electromagnetic polluted environment

High-performance high-reliable integrated circuits (ICs) show an increasing importance not only in the traditional segments as information and signal processing but also in the fields of power electronics and sensor systems. Integrated smart-power circuits enable innovative solutions moving toward a system integration. The combination of analog, digital, and power building blocks on a single chip allows the design and production of less-volume-and-weight electronics systems for different applications in the several fields. Smart-power ICs are usually employed in the automotive industry, where higher safety standards, tighter environmental normative, and the demand for increasing comfort on board lead to a constantly increasing amount of microelectronic components built into modern cars [1]. Therefore, high performance has to be guaranteed with the highest level of reliability and critical parameters have to be detected, and proper countermeasures have to be taken immediately. Thus, for safety reasons, specific integrated sensors are designed to report status signals to the central unit and to protect the overall system-on-chip. It means that monitoring and sensing building blocks have to work properly in every operating condition in order to prevent malfunctioning or damaging of the overall integrated system-on-chip.