An enhanced test generator for capacitance induced crosstalk delay faults

Capacitive crosstalk can give rise to slowdown of signals that can propagate to a circuit output and create a functional error A test generation methodology, called XGEN, was developed to generate tests for such failures. Two drawbacks of XGEN are: (i) it is not complete because of restricted propagation conditions, and (ii) a constrained logic value system is used. In this paper, we relax the propagation conditions to increase the solution space. This increases the likelihood of finding a test. We also present a nine-valued algebra that distinguishes between hazardous values and non-hazardous values. Finally, we use the relation between arrival time and required time ranges to selectively turn off the timing computation procedure which is computationally expensive. Other drawbacks of previous versions of XGEN are: (i) a simplified pin-to-pin delay model was used, and (ii) crosstalk computation could not handle timing ranges. We have addressed both of those issues.