Title :
Online test vector insertion: A concurrent built-in self-testing (CBIST) approach for asynchronous logic
Author :
Maier, Josef ; Steininger, Andreas
Author_Institution :
Inst. of Comput. Eng., Vienna Univ. of Technol., Vienna, Austria
Abstract :
Complementing concurrent checking with online testing is crucial for preventing fault accumulation in fault-tolerant systems with long mission times. While implementing a non-intrusive online test is cumbersome in a synchronous environment, this task becomes even more challenging in asynchronous designs. The latter receive increasing attention, mainly due to their elastic timing behaviour; however the issues related with their testing remain a key obstacle for their wide adoption. In this paper we present a novel approach for testing of asynchronous circuits that leverages the redundancy present in the conventional 4-phase protocol for implementing a fully transparent and fully concurrent test procedure. The key idea is to use the protocol´s unproductive NULL phase for processing test vectors, thus effectively interleaving the incoming 4-phase data stream with a test data stream in a 2-phase fashion. We present implementation templates for the fundamental building blocks required and give a proof-of-concept by an example application that also serves as a platform for evaluating the overheads of our solution which turn out to be moderate.
Keywords :
asynchronous circuits; built-in self test; fault tolerance; integrated circuit testing; 4-phase data stream; NULL phase; asynchronous logic; concurrent built-in self-testing; elastic timing behaviour; fault-tolerant systems; online test vector insertion; Circuit faults; Delays; Pipelines; Protocols; Rails; Testing; Vectors;
Conference_Titel :
Design and Diagnostics of Electronic Circuits & Systems, 17th International Symposium on
Conference_Location :
Warsaw
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4799-4560-3
DOI :
10.1109/DDECS.2014.6868759