A DFT Method for RTL Data Paths Based on Partially Strong Testability to Guarantee Complete Fault Efficiency

This paper presents a non-scan design-for-testability (DFT) method that guarantees complete fault efficiency (FE) for register transfer level (RTL) data paths. We first define the partially strong testability as a characteristic of data paths. Then we propose a DFT method to make a data path partially strongly testable and a test generation method for partially strong testable data paths based on the time expansion model (TEM). The proposed DFT method can reduce hardware overhead drastically compared with the previous method based on strong testability. Moreover, the proposed DFT method can generate test patterns with complete FE in practical time and allow at-speed test.