A Selective Scan Slice Encoding Technique for Test Data Volume and Test Power Reduction

Scan architectures, though widely used in modern designs for testing purpose, are expensive in test data volume and power consumption. To solve these problems, we propose in this paper to modify an existing test data compression technique (Wang Z, Chakrabarty K in Test data compression for IP embedded cores using selective encoding of scan slices. IEEE International Test Conference, paper 24.3, 2005) so that it can simultaneously address test data volume and power consumption reduction for scan testing of embedded Intellectual Property (IP) cores. Compared to the initial solution that fill don’t-care bits with the aim of reducing only test data volume, here the assignment is performed to minimize also the power consumption. The proposed power-aware test data compression technique is applied to the ISCAS’89 and ITC’99 benchmark circuits and on a number of industrial circuits. Results show that up to 14× reduction in test data volume and 98% test power reduction can be obtained simultaneously.

LFSR Reseeding-Oriented Low-Power Test-Compression Architecture for Scan Designs

Massive test data volume and excessive test power consumption have become two strict challenges for very large scale integrated circuit testing. In BIST architecture, the unspecified bits are randomly filled by LFSR reseeding-based test compression scheme, which produces enormous switching activities during circuit testing, thereby causing high test power consumption for scan design. To solve the above thorny problem, LFSR reseeding-oriented low-power test-compression architecture is developed, and an optimized encoding algorithm is involved in conjunction with any LFSR-reseeding scheme to effectively reduce test storage and power consumption, it includes test cube-based block processing, dividing into hold partition sets and updating hold partition sets. The main contributions is to decrease logic transitions in scan chains and reduce specified bit in test cubes generated via LFSR reseeding. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed scheme achieves a high test compression efficiency than the existing methods while significantly reduces test power consumption with acceptable area overhead for most Benchmark circuits.     

Reducing test-data volume and test-power simultaneously in LFSR reseeding-based compression environment

This paper presents a new test scheme based on scan block encoding in a linear feedback shift register (LFSR) reseeding-based compression environment.Meanwhile,our paper also introduces a novel algorithm of scan-block clustering.The main contribution of this paper is a flexible test-application framework that achieves significant reductions in switching activity during scan shift and the number of specified bits that need to be generated via LFSR reseeding.Thus,it can significantly reduce the test power and test data volume.Experimental results using Mintest test set on the larger ISCAS’89 benchmarks show that the proposed method reduces the switching activity significantly by 72%-94%and provides a best possible test compression of 74%-94%with little hardware overhead.     

Improving the Effectiveness of Combinational Decompressors Through Judicious Partitioning of Scan Cells

While integrated circuits of ever increasing size and complexity necessitate larger test sets for ensuring high test quality, the consequent test time and data volume reflect into elevated test costs. Test data compression solutions have been proposed to address this problem by storing and delivering stimuli in a compressed format. The effectiveness of these techniques, however, strongly relies on the distribution of the specified bits of test vectors. In this paper, we propose a scan cell partitioning technique so as to ensure that specified bits are uniformly distributed across the scan slices, especially for the test vectors with higher density of specified bits. The proposed scan cell partitioning process is driven by an integer linear programming (ILP) formulation, wherein it is also possible to account for the layout and routing constraints. While the proposed technique can be applied to increase the effectiveness of any combinational decompression architecture, in this paper, we present its application in conjunction with a fan-out based decompression architecture. The experimental results also confirm the compression enhancement of the proposed methodology.

Low Capture Switching Activity Test Generation for Reducing IR-Drop in At-Speed Scan Testing

At-speed scan testing, based on ATPG and ATE, is indispensable to guarantee timing-related test quality in the DSM era. However, at-speed scan testing may incur yield loss due to excessive IR-drop caused by high test (shift & capture) switching activity. This paper discusses the mechanism of circuit malfunction due to IR-drop, and summarizes general approaches to reducing switching activity, by which highlights the problem of current solutions, i.e. only reducing switching activity for one capture while the widely used at-speed scan testing based on the launch-off-capture scheme uses two captures. This paper then proposes a novel X-filling method, called double-capture (DC) X-filling, for generating test vectors with low and balanced capture switching activity for two captures. Applicable to dynamic & static compaction in any ATPG system, DC X-filling can reduce IR-drop, and thus yield loss, without any circuit/clock modification, timing/circuit overhead, fault coverage loss, and additional design effort.

Test Compression for IP Core Testing with Reconfigurable Network and Fixing-Flipping Coding

This paper proposes a class of test compression for IP (intellectual property) core testing. The proposed compression requires only test cubes for the IP cores and it dose not require the structural information about the IP cores. It uses both a reconfigurable network and classes of coding, namely fixing-flipping coding and fixing-shifting-flipping coding. The proposed compression is evaluated from the viewpoint of compression rates and hardware overhead. For three out of four large ISCAS89 benchmark circuits, the compression rates of the proposed compression are better than those of the four existing test compressions.

Two-Dimensional Test Data Compression for Scan-Based Deterministic BIST

In this paper a novel architecture for scan-based mixed mode BIST is presented. To reduce the storage requirements for the deterministic patterns it relies on a two-dimensional compression scheme, which combines the advantages of known vertical and horizontal compression techniques. To reduce both the number of patterns to be stored and the number of bits to be stored for each pattern, deterministic test cubes are encoded as seeds of an LFSR (horizontal compression), and the seeds are again compressed into seeds of a folding counter sequence (vertical compression). The proposed BIST architecture is fully compatible with standard scan design, simple and flexible, so that sharing between several logic cores is possible. Experimental results show that the proposed scheme requires less test data storage than previously published approaches providing the same flexibility and scan compatibility.     

Scan Shift Power Reduction by Freezing Power Sensitive Scan Cells

In this paper, we show that not every scan cell contributes equally to the power consumption during scan-based test. The transitions at some scan cells cause more toggles at the internal signal lines of a circuit than the transitions at other scan cells. Hence the transitions at these scan cells have a larger impact on the power consumption during test application. We call these scan cells power sensitive scan cells. A signal probability based approach is proposed to identify a set of power sensitive scan cells. Additional hardware is added to freeze the outputs of power sensitive scan cells during scan shifting in order to reduce the shift power consumption. Experimental results on industrial circuits show that on average more than 45% of the scan shift power can be eliminated when freezing only 5% of power sensitive scan cells.

Scan Division Algorithm for Shift and Capture Power Reduction for At-Speed Test Using Skewed-Load Test Application Strategy

This paper discusses an automated method to divide scan chains into multiple scan segments that are suitable for power-constrained at-speed testing using the skewed-load test application strategy. By dividing a circuit into multiple partitions, which can be tested independently, both power during shift and power during capture can be controlled. Despite activating one partition at a time, we show how through conscious construction of scan segments, high transition fault coverage can be achieved, while reducing test time of the circuit and employing third party test generation tools.

Scan-in and Scan-out Transition Co-optimization Through Modelling Generalized Serial Transformations

Scan-based cores impose considerable test power challenges due to excessive switching activity during shift cycles. The consequent test power constraints force system-on-chip (SOC) designers to sacrifice parallelism among core tests, as exceeding power thresholds may damage the chip being tested. Reduction of test power for SOC cores can thus increase the number of cores that can be tested in parallel, improving significantly SOC test application time. In this paper, we propose a scan chain modification technique that inserts logic gates on the scan path. The consequent beneficial test data transformations are utilized to reduce the scan chain transitions during shift cycles and hence test power. We introduce a matrix band algebra that models the impact of logic gate insertion between scan cells on the test stimulus and response transformations realized. As we have successfully modeled the response transformations as well, the methodology we propose is capable of truly minimizing the overall test power. The test vectors and responses are analyzed in an intertwined manner, identifying the best possible scan chain modification, which is realized at minimal area cost. Experimental results justify the efficacy of the proposed methodology as well.

Arbitrary Two-Pattern Delay Testing Using a Low-Overhead Supply Gating Technique

With increasing defect density and process variations in nanometer technologies, testing for delay faults is becoming essential in manufacturing test to complement stuck-at-fault testing. This paper presents a novel test technique based on supply gating, which can be used as an alternative to the enhanced scan based delay fault testing, with significantly less design overhead. Experimental results on a set of ISCAS89 benchmarks show an average reduction of 34% in area overhead with an average improvement of 65% in delay overhead and 90% in power overhead during normal mode of operation, compared to the enhanced scan implementation.

Controllability of Static CMOS Circuits for Timing Characterization

Timing violations, also known as delay faults, are a major source of defective silicon in modern Integrated Circuits (ICs), designed in Deep Sub-micron (DSM) technologies, making it imperative to perform delay fault testing in these ICs. However, DSM ICs, also suffer from limited controllability and observability, which impedes easy and efficient testing for such ICs. In this paper, we present a novel Design for Testability (DFT) scheme to enhance controllability for delay fault testing. Existing DFT techniques for delay fault testing either have very high overhead, or increase the complexity of test generation significantly. The DFT technique presented in this paper, exploits the characteristics of CMOS circuit family and reduces the problem of delay fault testing of scan based sequential static CMOS circuits to delay fault testing of combinational circuits with complete access to all inputs. The scheme has low overhead, and also provides significant reduction in power dissipation during scan operation.

Multiple Access <Emphasis Type="Italic">M</Emphasis>-ary Modulation UWB System Based on Code-Selected Direct Sequence Bipolar PAM

This work presents an M-ary multiple access code-selected direct sequence (DS) ultra wideband (UWB) communication system. A high data rate multiple access UWB system can be obtained by a code selection mechanism. In the proposed system, each user is assigned a DS code set with M/2 DS code sequence and a particular DS code sequence can be selected by the log₂ (M/2) bits from the DS code set. More importantly for this M-ary UWB communication system, with the increase of the modulation level M, it allows to reduce the required transmitter power maintaining the number of users, the data transmission rate and the multiple access performance. In this paper, we also introduce the detailed algorithm to compute the bit error rate (BER) over the AWGN channel and correlation receivers.

一种低功耗双重测试数据压缩方案

随着集成电路制造工艺的发展,VLSI（Very Large Scale Integrated）电路测试面临着测试数据量大和测试功耗过高的问题.对此,本文提出一种基于多级压缩的低功耗测试数据压缩方案.该方案先利用输入精简技术对原测试集进行预处理,以减少测试集中的确定位数量,之后再进行第一级压缩,即对测试向量按多扫描划分为子向量并进行相容压缩,压缩后的测试向量可用更短的码字表示;接着再对测试数据进行低功耗填充,先进行捕获功耗填充,使其达到安全阈值以内,然后再对剩余的无关位进行移位功耗填充;最后对填充后的测试数据进行第二级压缩,即改进游程编码压缩.对ISCAS89基准电路的实验结果表明,本文方案能取得比golomb码、FDR码、EFDR码、9C码、BM码等更高的压缩率,同时还能协同优化测试时的捕获功耗和移位功耗.     

A Low-Cost Test Methodology for Dynamic Specification Testing of High-Speed Data Converters

Testing high-speed A/D converters for dynamic specifications needs test equipment running at high frequency. In this paper, a methodology to test high-speed A/D converters using low-frequency resources is described. It is based on the alternate testing approach. In the proposed methodology, models are built to map the signatures of an initial set of devices, obtained on the proposed low-cost test set-up, to the dynamic specifications of the same devices, obtained using high-precision test equipment. During production testing, the devices are tested on the low-cost test set-up. The dynamic specifications of the devices are estimated by capturing their signatures on the low cost test set-up and processing them with the pre-developed models. As opposed to the conventional method of dynamic specification testing of data converters, the proposed approach does not require the tester resources running at a frequency higher than the device-under-test (DUT). The test methodology was verified in simulations as well as in hardware with specification estimation error of less than 5%.

Isolation of Failing Scan Cells through Convolutional Test Response Compaction

This paper describes a non-recursive fault diagnosis technique for scan-based designs with convolutional test response compaction. The proposed approach allows a time-efficient and accurate identification of failing scan cells using Gauss–Jordan elimination method.

High Quality Uniform Random Number Generation Using LUT Optimised State-transition Matrices

This paper presents a family of uniform random number generators designed for efficient implementation in Lookup table (LUT) based FPGA architectures. A generator with a period of 2 ^k  − 1 can be implemented using k flip-flops and k LUTs, and provides k random output bits each cycle. Each generator is based on a binary linear recurrence, with a state-transition matrix designed to make best use of all available LUT inputs in a given FPGA architecture, and to ensure that the critical path between all registers is a single LUT. This class of generator provides a higher sample rate per area than LFSR and Combined Tausworthe generators, and operates at similar or higher clock-rates. The statistical quality of the generators increases with k, and can be used to pass all common empirical tests such as Diehard, Crush and the NIST cryptographic test suite. Theoretical properties such as global equidistribution can also be calculated, and best and average case statistics shown. Due to the large number of random bits generated per cycle these generators can be used as a basis for generators with even higher statistical quality, and an example involving combination through addition is demonstrated.

A New Unequal Power Allocation Scheme for Asymmetric Turbo Code System

In this paper, a modified unequal power allocation scheme for the different bits of asymmetric turbo encoder has been investigated to enhance the performance. The simulation results and performance bound for the asymmetric turbo code with modified Unequal Power Allocation (UPA) scheme are obtained and compared with the system with typical UPA and without UPA. From the performance results, it is observed that the proposed asymmetric turbo code with modified UPA performs better than the system without UPA and with typical UPA and it provides a coding gain of 0.4–0.52 dB.

Bounds on Inter-carrier Interference Power of OFDM in a Gaussian Scattering Channel

This letter derives the upper and lower bounds on inter-carrier interference power P _ICI of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) in a Gaussian scattering channel. The bounds are computed as functions of f _d T _s product of the maximum Doppler spread f _d and symbol duration T _s , ζ frequency tracking and ϵ mobile travelling direction. Insightful discussions on the characteristics of P _ICI are given. Future work is also outlined.

Low-Complexity PAPR Reduction of MC-SS Signals in PAN

A peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) reduction scheme with low complexity is proposed for the multicarrier spread spectrum (MC-SS) system in personal area network (PAN). Traditional clipping and filtering scheme requires a high oversampling rate to meet the emission mask requirements. This would cause high power consumption for mobile PAN devices in personal network. To solve the problem, upsampling is introduced between clipping and filtering in this paper to reduce the oversampling rate. A simplified implementation structure is also derived for the proposed scheme. Simulation results show that its complexity is about 65% of the conventional scheme while achieving satisfying performance.