Test scheduling for core-based systems

We present optimal solutions to the test scheduling problem for core-based systems. We show that test scheduling is equivalent to the m-processor open-shop scheduling problem and is therefore NP-complete. However a commonly-encountered instance of this problem (m=2) can be solved in polynomial time. For the general case (m>2), we present a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model for optimal scheduling and apply it to a representative core-based system using an MILP solver. We also extend the MILP model to allow optimal test set selection from a set of alternatives. Finally we present an efficient heuristic algorithm for handling larger systems for which the MILP model may be infeasible.