Scan Chain Organization for Embedded Diagnosis

Keeping diagnostic resolution as high as possible while maximizing the compaction ratio is subject to research since the advent of embedded test. In this paper, we present a novel scan design methodology to maximize diagnostic resolution when compaction is employed. The essential idea is to consider the diagnostic resolution during the clustering of scan elements to scan chains. Our methodology does not depend on a fault model and is helpful with any type of compactor. A linear time heuristic is presented to solve the scan chain clustering problem. We evaluate our approach for industrial and academic benchmark circuits. It turns out to be superior to both random and to layout driven scan chain clustering. The methodology is applicable to any gate-level design and fits smoothly into an industrial design flow.