Reducing Power Supply Noise in Linear-Decompressor-Based Test Data Compression Environment for At-Speed Scan Testing

Yield loss caused by excessive power supply noise has become a serious problem in at-speed scan testing. Although X-filling techniques are available to reduce the launch cycle switching activity, their performance may not be satisfactory in the linear-decompressor-based test compression environment. This work is the first to solve this problem by proposing a novel integrated ATPG scheme that efficiently and effectively performs compressible X-filling. Related theoretical principles are established, based on which the problem size is substantially reduced. The proposed scheme is validated by large benchmark circuits as well as an industry design in the embedded deterministic test (EDT) environment.