Workstation based parallel test generation

Generation of test vectors for the VLSI devices used in contemporary digital system is becoming much more difficult as these devices increase in size. Automatic Test Pattern Generation (ATPG) techniques are commonly used to generate these tests. Since ATPG is an NP complete problem with complexity exponential to circuit size, the application of parallel processing techniques to accelerate the process of finding test patterns is an active area of research. This paper presents an approach to parallelization of the test generation problem that is targeted to a network-of-workstations environment. The system is based upon partitioning of the fault list across multiple processors and includes enhancements designed to address the main drawbacks of this technique, namely unequal load balancing and generation of redundant vectors. The technique is generalized enough that it can be applied to any test generation system regardless of the ATPG or fault simulation algorithm employed. Results were gathered to determine the impact of workstation processing load and network communications load on the performance of the system