Recursive Pseudo-Exhaustive Two-Pattern Generation

• Published in: IEEE transactions on very large scale integration (VLSI) systems Vol. 18; no. 1; pp. 142 - 152
• Main Authors: Voyiatzis, I., Gizopoulos, D., Paschalis, A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01.01.2010; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Automatic testing; Built-in self-test; Built-in self-test (BIST); Circuit faults; Circuit testing; Clocks; Delay; Design. Technologies. Operation analysis. Testing; Electrical fault detection; Electronics; Exact sciences and technology; Fault detection; Integrated circuits; pseudoexchaustive two-pattern testing; Semiconductor electronics. Microelectronics. Optoelectronics. Solid state devices; Sequential analysis; test pattern generation; Test pattern generators; Testing, measurement, noise and reliability; pseudoexchaustive two-pattern testing; Pattern generator; Test pattern generation; Open fault; Clock; Stuck at fault; Implementation; Built-in self-test (BIST); Testing equipment; Recursive method; Software; Delay time; CMOS integrated circuits; Built in self test
• ISSN: 1063-8210; 1557-9999
• DOI: 10.1109/TVLSI.2009.2031300

Pseudo-exhaustive pattern generators for built-in self-test (BIST) provide high fault coverage of detectable combinational faults with much fewer test vectors than exhaustive generation. In ( n , k )-adjacent bit pseudo-exhaustive test sets, all 2 k binary combinations appear to all adjacent k -bit groups of inputs. With recursive pseudoexhaustive generation, all ( n , k )-adjacent bit pseudoexhaustive tests are generated for k ¿ n and more than one modules can be pseudo-exhaustively tested in parallel. In order to detect sequential (e.g., stuck-open) faults that occur into current CMOS circuits, two-pattern tests are exercised. Also, delay testing, commonly used to assure correct circuit operation at clock speed requires two-pattern tests. In this paper a pseudoexhaustive two-pattern generator is presented, that recursively generates all two-pattern ( n , k )-adjacent bit pseudoexhaustive tests for all k ¿ n . To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time in the open literature that the subject of recursive pseudoexhaustive two-pattern testing is being dealt with. A software-based implementation with no hardware overhead is also presented.