BIST based communication system

Built-in self-test techniques have been widely researched and adopted for reasons of improvements in test time and test cost, reduction in test resources required for test of large chips with embedded cores, and for field testability. While the adoption of these techniques is becoming prevalent, there continue to be challenges in making BIST solutions comprehensive to meet several design and application constraints. This paper describes the use of BIST implementations for self-test of a communication system, to support field testability. Novel aspects of this solution include (i) full off-line testing of the link and system, (ii) partial online testing, and (iii) support for various network management functions.