Design for testing

About: Design for testing is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 3946 publications have been published within this topic receiving 63049 citations. The topic is also known as: Design for Testability, DFT.

Low Power Scan Shift and Capture in the EDT Environment

Abstract: This paper presents a new and comprehensive power-aware test scheme compatible with a test compression environment. The key contribution of the paper is a flexible test application framework that achieves significant reductions in switching activity during all phases of scan test: scan loading, unloading, and capture.

Non-scan design-for-testability of RT-level data paths

Abstract: This paper presents a non-scan design-for-testability technique applicable to register-transfer (RT) level data path circuits, which are usually very hard-to-test due to the presence of complex loop structures. We develop a new testability measure, and utilize the RT-level structure of the data path, for cost-effective re-design of the circuit to make it easily testable, without having to either scan any flip-flop or breakloops directly. The non-scan DFT technique was applied to several data path circuits. Experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of producing non-scan testable data paths, which can be tested at-speed. The hardware overhead and the test application time required for the non-scan designs is significantly lower than the corresponding partial scan designs.

High-level test generation using physically-induced faults

Abstract: A high-level fault modeling and testing philosophy is proposed which is aimed at ensuring full detection of low level, physical faults, as well as the industry-standard single stuck-line (SSL) faults. A set of independent functional faults and the corresponding functional tests are derived (induced) from the circuit under test; of particular interest are SSL-induced functional faults or SIFs. We present, for the first time, complete functional circuit models and tests for representative 74X-series and ISCAS-85 benchmark circuits, and apply the proposed methodology to them. These examples demonstrate that functional testing can, with far less effort than conventional method, produce test sets that provide complete coverage of SSL faults in practical circuits. Surprisingly, these test sets are also provably of minimal or near-minimal size.

PSBIST: A partial-scan based built-in self-test scheme

Abstract: Partial-scan based built-in self-test (PSBIST) is a versatile design for testability (DFT) scheme, which employs pseudo-random BIST at all levels of test to achieve fault coverages greater than 98% on average, and supports deterministic partial scan at the IC level to achieve nearly 100% fault coverage. While PSBIST provides all the benefits of BIST, it incurs less area overhead and performance degradation than full scan. The area overhead is further reduced when the boundary scan cells are reconfigured for BIST usage. >

Decompression hardware determination for test volume and time reduction through unified test pattern compaction and compression

Abstract: A methodology for the determination of decompression hardware that guarantees complete fault coverage for a unified compaction/compression scheme is proposed. Test cube information is utilized for the determination of a near optimal decompression hardware. The proposed scheme attains simultaneously high compression levels and reduced pattern counts through a linear decompression hardware. Significant test volume and test application time reductions are delivered through the scheme we propose while a highly cost effective hardware implementation is retained.