DocumentCode
351960
Title
On testing the path delay faults of a microprocessor using its instruction set
Author
Lai, Wei-Cheng ; Krstic, Angela ; Cheng, Kwang-Ting
Author_Institution
Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., California Univ., Santa Barbara, CA, USA
fYear
2000
fDate
2000
Firstpage
15
Lastpage
20
Abstract
This paper addresses the problem of testing path delay faults in a microprocessor using instructions. It is observed that a structurally testable path (i.e., a path testable through at-speed scan) in a microprocessor might not be testable by its instructions simply because no instruction sequence can produce the desired test sequence which can sensitize the paths and capture the fault effect into the destination output/flip-flop at-speed. These paths are called functionally untestable paths. We discuss the impact of delay defects on the functionally untestable paths on the overall circuit performance and illustrate that they do not need to be tested if the delay defect does not cause the path delay to exceed twice the clock period. Identification of such paths helps determine the achievable path delay fault coverage and reduce the subsequent test generation effort. The experimental results for two microprocessors (Parwan and DLX) indicate that a significant percentage of structurally testable paths are functionally untestable and thus need not be tested
Keywords
automatic test pattern generation; boundary scan testing; delays; fault diagnosis; instruction sets; integrated circuit testing; microprocessor chips; DLX; Parwan; achievable path delay fault coverage; at-speed scan; delay defects; functionally untestable paths; instruction set; microprocessor; path delay faults; structurally testable path; test generation effort; test sequence; Circuit faults; Circuit optimization; Circuit testing; Clocks; Delay; Fault diagnosis; Flip-flops; Logic testing; Microprocessors; Registers;
fLanguage
English
Publisher
ieee
Conference_Titel
VLSI Test Symposium, 2000. Proceedings. 18th IEEE
Conference_Location
Montreal, Que.
ISSN
1093-0167
Print_ISBN
0-7695-0613-5
Type
conf
DOI
10.1109/VTEST.2000.843821
Filename
843821
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