An Effective Technique for the Automatic Generation of Diagnosis-Oriented Programs for Processor Cores

A large part of microprocessor cores in use today are designed to be cheap and mass produced. The diagnostic process, which is fundamental to improve yield, has to be as cost effective as possible. This paper presents a novel approach to the construction of diagnosis-oriented software-based test sets for microprocessors. The methodology exploits existing manufacturing test sets designed for software-based self-test and improves them by using a new diagnosis-oriented approach. Experimental results are reported in this paper showing the feasibility, robustness, and effectiveness of the approach for diagnosing stuck-at faults on an Intel i8051 processor core.