CURRENT CONSUMPTION BALANCE CIRCUIT, COMPENSATION CURRENT AMOUNT ADJUSTING METHOD, TIMING GENERATOR, AND SEMICONDUCTOR TESTING APPARATUS

摘要

To reduce the layout area of a compensation circuit and suppress the degradation of precision of a delay time that otherwise would be caused by a temperature variation due to a power variation of a delay circuit itself or caused by a load variation of a power supply. A current consumption balance circuit comprises a delay circuit (25) for applying a delay time to a timing pulse signal, and a compensation circuit (heater circuit 28) for interpolating the current consumption of the delay circuit. The current consumption balance circuit further comprises a ring oscillator (31) provided in the same power supply area as the delay circuit (25); an output period counter (32) for determining the output period of the ring oscillator (31); and a heater circuit current amount adjusting circuit (33) for so adjusting the current amount of the heater circuit (28) for each of stages or circuits as to minimize the difference between the output period of the ring oscillator (31) in the stand-by state and the output period of the ring oscillator (31) in the active state.