Abstract: A sense resistor is coupled between a power source and one or more power pins of an integrated circuit (IC) chip including a circuit component (e.g., a microcontroller unit (MCU)). An on-chip amplifier (e.g., a programmable gain amplifier or op-amp) amplifies the voltage drop over the sense resistor to a level that is within the dynamic range of an on-chip analog-to-digital converter (ADC). In some implementations, the measured signals can be time-stamped and stored in a trace buffer and aligned with other trace data using a front-end tool (e.g., a personal computer). In some implementations, circuitry is included for detecting and handling power consumption events associated with the circuit component. In some implementations, a program counter associated with the circuit component is synchronously sampled with the power consumption measurements and/or other data sources.

Abstract: A sense resistor is coupled between a power source and one or more power pins of an integrated circuit (IC) chip including a circuit component (e.g., a microcontroller unit (MCU)). An on-chip amplifier (e.g., a programmable gain amplifier or op-amp) amplifies the voltage drop over the sense resistor to a level that is within the dynamic range of an on-chip analog-to-digital converter (ADC). In some implementations, the measured signals can be time-stamped and stored in a trace buffer and aligned with other trace data using a front-end tool (e.g., a personal computer). In some implementations, circuitry is included for detecting and handling power consumption events associated with the circuit component. In some implementations, a program counter associated with the circuit component is synchronously sampled with the power consumption measurements and/or other data sources.