A quality measure for LSI components

Large-scale integration components are subjected to testing based on stuck fault modeling. Stuck fault testing often does not provide patterns for all possible stuck conditions that can exist in a circuit. Because of the incompleteness of test coverage, a new quality measure is needed-one that is not based on sample inspection. Such an LSI quality measure is described in this paper. The LSI quality measure can be related to component yield and is based on the stuck fault testing coverage, the physical circuit design layout, and the rate of faults occurring on elemental circuit geometries. The concept of the LSI quality measure is illustrated in this paper by an example. Starting from a block diagram and an assumed stuck fault coverage, some stuck faults are assumed to remain untested. For these untested faults, the elemental circuit geometries in a corresponding FET circuit layout are determined, and the quality measure calculated. Common sense rules are offered for optimizing the quality and lowering its cost impact on higher levels of assembly.