Patent · US Expired

Hybrid partial scan method

US5691990A · kind A · utility

10Cited by
8References
13Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateDec 2, 1996
Grant dateNov 25, 1997
Priority date
Expiry dateDec 2, 2016

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG01R31/318586
  • WIPO fieldMeasurement
  • WIPO sectorInstruments

Abstract

An efficient method of selecting flip-flops to be made scannable in a digital integrated circuit design for purposes of improving testability without incurring the overhead of full-scan, comprising the steps of (a) partitioning the faults in the circuit into a first fault type and a second fault type, (b) selecting a static characterization algorithm for characterizing the first and second fault types, (c) determining the relationship between attainable fault coverage and the characterized values for the first and second fault types, (d) characterizing the first and second fault types for each candidate flip-flop for scan in the digital integrated circuit with the static characterization algorithm, (e) determining the first and second fault types that are the closest together in value, (f) selecting the flip-flop associated with the first and second fault types determined in step (e), (g) forming a shift register with flip-flop selected in step (f), (h) repeating steps (d)-(g) until the attainable fault coverage determined in step (c) is attained, and (i) generating test data for the network with the shift register configured in step (h).

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.