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U.S. Department of Energy
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Techniques to speedup test generation for VLSI circuits

Thesis/Dissertation ·
OSTI ID:5897040

The increasing complexity of logic circuits has made the problem of test generation intractable. In this dissertation the author investigates three different techniques to speed up the test generation process. The first approach attempts to exploit the hierarchy inherent in any complex digital design. An intermediate high-level representation is proposed, and algorithms to perform forward implication and backtracing in the proposed framework are developed. Results of test generation experiments based on this approach are also presented. The second technique deals with the use of heuristics in test generation algorithms. Based on an extensive study of five existing testability measures, a composite test generation strategy is evaluated. The composite strategy uses multiple testability measures to aid the test generation guidance heuristic. His results indicate that this strategy not only gives better fault coverage but also reduces the average time taken per fault. Finally he investigates the viability of parallel processing for test generation. Schemes for mapping test generation algorithms onto different classes of parallel machines are presented. The performance of these mapping strategies is predicted based on uniprocessor turnaround times and an estimate of the communication delays.

Research Organization:
Illinois Univ., Urbana, IL (USA)
OSTI ID:
5897040
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English