A new approach to diagnose multiple simultaneous defects

This paper presents a new approach for the diagnosis of multiple manufacturing defects that affects digital integrated circuits (IC). The method treats each failing pattern as an independent diagnosis, and finds out the location of potential candidates when they are simultaneously simulated explain each failing pattern. Our methodology consists in three main steps and can diagnose three types of multiple defect configurations. This method can also diagnose multiple faults masked by single fault. Experiments were performed in good ICs in which different types of multiple faults were injected and on devises with real defects. The correct fault locations and cause were predicted in all cases.