BIST-based diagnosis of FPGA interconnect

We present a Built-In Self-Test (BIST)-based diagnostic approach for the programmable interconnect resources in Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) that can be used for either on-line or off-line testing. The technique was originally intended for on-line diagnosis of faulty interconnect to support fault-tolerant applications. However, the technique has been proven to be an excellent approach for off-line testing and diagnosis as well, providing high-resolution diagnostics with the ability to identify the faulty wire segment or programmable switch. We have implemented this BIST-based diagnostic approach on the ORCA series FPGA and present the results of testing and diagnosing known defective FPGAs.