On output response compression in the presence of unknown output values

ABSTRACT

A circuit may produce unknown output values during simulation of an input sequence due to an unknown initial state or due to the existence of tri-state elements. For circuits tested using BIST, unknown output values make it impossible to determine a single unique signature for the fault free circuit. To accommodate unknown output values in a BIST scheme, we describe a procedure for synthesizing a minimal logic block that replaces unknown output values by a known constant. The proposed procedure ensures that the BIST scheme will be able to detect all the faults detectable by the input sequence applied to the circuit while allowing a single unique signature to be obtained.

REFERENCES

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  B. Hardware
  B.2 ARITHMETIC AND LOGIC STRUCTURES

Additional Classification:
  B. Hardware
  B.8 Performance and Reliability
      B.8.1 Reliability, Testing, and Fault-Tolerance

General Terms:
Algorithms, Reliability