Behavioral stimulus generation for digital test programs

This paper describes a process, developed by Integrated Test Solutions, Inc. (ITS), that provides the test programmer with a new type of environment for developing true functional tests using ATPG. This process is called BEhavioral STimulus for TEST Development, or BestTest. BestTest allows for the development of true functional tests using much smaller test patterns than with conventional ATPG alone. Test vectors produced using the BestTest approach result in higher levels of fault detection at significantly lower cost. The heart of the BestTest approach is to provide the test programmer with a behavioral stimulus generation capability that provides for: the ability to generate conditional stimulus; the ability to create complex functions; and the ability to sense the state of the simulation at run time