Cost effective PRNG using ELCA: A BIST application

Generation of pseudo-random numbers using Cellular Automata (CA) for Built-In-Self-Test (BIST) applications has been emphasized in this work. Enhanced cost effectiveness is achieved for the generation procedure of pseudorandom patterns with proposed Equal Length CA (ELCA) with reference to Maximum-length CA (MaxCA). Proposed ELCA scheme generates patterns for BIST and achieves higher quality of fault coverage compared to MaxCA and Linear Feedback Shift Register (LFSR) based BIST pattern generator. Proposed ELCA based pattern generator is significantly contributing a role in overhead reduction of fault coverage for BIST pattern generator. A high degree of randomness is maintained in generated patterns in proposed design focusing on the reduction of some major associated complexities such as design complexity, time complexity and searching complexity. Experimental results have ensured that high degree of randomness and comparative high degree of fault coverage are achieved for proposed ELCA based BIST application.