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

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Abstract

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.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Kyushu Institute of Technology, Kawazu 680, Iizuka, Fukuoka, 820-8502, Japan

    Xiaoqing Wen, Kohei Miyase & Seiji Kajihara

  2. Denso Techno Co., Nagoya, Aichi, 450-0002, Japan

    Tatsuya Suzuki

  3. SynTest Technologies, Inc., 505 S. Pastoria Avenue, Sunnyvale, CA, USA

    Laung-Terng Wang

  4. University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI, 53706, USA

    Kewal K. Saluja

  5. Osaka Gakuin University, Suita, Osaka, 564-8511, Japan

    Kozo Kinoshita

Authors
  1. Xiaoqing Wen
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  2. Kohei Miyase
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  3. Tatsuya Suzuki
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  4. Seiji Kajihara
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  5. Laung-Terng Wang
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  6. Kewal K. Saluja
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  7. Kozo Kinoshita
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Correspondence to Xiaoqing Wen.

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Responsible Editor: N. Nicolici

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Wen, X., Miyase, K., Suzuki, T. et al. Low Capture Switching Activity Test Generation for Reducing IR-Drop in At-Speed Scan Testing. J Electron Test 24, 379–391 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10836-007-5033-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10836-007-5033-3

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