High-coverage ATPG for datapath circuits with unimplemented blocks

Conventional ATPG cannot effectively handle designs employing IP circuits (cores) whose implementation details are either unknown, unavailable, or subject to change. A new ATPG program RIBTEC for such designs is described that employs a functional (behavioral) fault model based on a class of non-exhaustive “universal” test sets. Given a circuit´s high-level block structure, RIBTEC constructs a universal test set for each block from its functional description in such a way that realization-independence of the blocks is ensured. Experimental results are presented for representative datapath circuits, which show that RIBTEC achieves very high fault coverage and an exceptionally high level of realization independence