TY - GEN
T1 - Unsatisfiability based efficient design for testability solution for register-transfer level circuits
AU - Lingappan, Loganathan
AU - Jha, Niraj K.
PY - 2005
Y1 - 2005
N2 - In this paper, we present a novel and accurate method for identifying design for testability (DFT) solutions for register-transfer level (RTL) circuits. In this technique, clauses are generated using a satisfiability (SAT) based automatic test pattern generation (ATPG) tool to represent the control and data flow for a module under test in the given RTL circuit. RTL test generation makes use of the concept of pre-computed test sets for different RTL modules. The generated clauses corresponding to different pre-computed test vectors are then resolved by a SAT solver to obtain the test sequences for that module. In case of an unsatisfiable (UNSAT) solution, recent advances in the field of satisfiability enable us to accurately and efficiently identify clauses that are responsible for unsatisfiability (also known as the unsatisfiable segment). We show that adding DFT elements is equivalent to modifying clauses such that the unsatisfiable segment becomes satisfiable. In order to minimize the number of DFT elements added to a circuit, a greedy algorithm is used to select circuit variables for DFT such that all the unsatisfiable segments become satisfiable. Unlike existing DFT techniques that are either inefficient in terms of the amount of test hardware added or take significant time to identify an efficient solution, the proposed DFT technique is both fast and accurate as it is applicable to RTL and mixed gate-level/RTL circuits and uses UNSAT to identify the DFT solutions. Experimental results on benchmarks show that for RTL circuits, the CPU time required to identify pre-computed test vectors for which the SAT ATPG fails to generate test sequences and to select DFT solutions for such cases is two orders of magnitude smaller than the time required for a single run of a gate-level sequential test generator. The DFT solution has very low area overhead (an average of 1.7%) and results in near-100% fault coverage.
AB - In this paper, we present a novel and accurate method for identifying design for testability (DFT) solutions for register-transfer level (RTL) circuits. In this technique, clauses are generated using a satisfiability (SAT) based automatic test pattern generation (ATPG) tool to represent the control and data flow for a module under test in the given RTL circuit. RTL test generation makes use of the concept of pre-computed test sets for different RTL modules. The generated clauses corresponding to different pre-computed test vectors are then resolved by a SAT solver to obtain the test sequences for that module. In case of an unsatisfiable (UNSAT) solution, recent advances in the field of satisfiability enable us to accurately and efficiently identify clauses that are responsible for unsatisfiability (also known as the unsatisfiable segment). We show that adding DFT elements is equivalent to modifying clauses such that the unsatisfiable segment becomes satisfiable. In order to minimize the number of DFT elements added to a circuit, a greedy algorithm is used to select circuit variables for DFT such that all the unsatisfiable segments become satisfiable. Unlike existing DFT techniques that are either inefficient in terms of the amount of test hardware added or take significant time to identify an efficient solution, the proposed DFT technique is both fast and accurate as it is applicable to RTL and mixed gate-level/RTL circuits and uses UNSAT to identify the DFT solutions. Experimental results on benchmarks show that for RTL circuits, the CPU time required to identify pre-computed test vectors for which the SAT ATPG fails to generate test sequences and to select DFT solutions for such cases is two orders of magnitude smaller than the time required for a single run of a gate-level sequential test generator. The DFT solution has very low area overhead (an average of 1.7%) and results in near-100% fault coverage.
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U2 - 10.1109/VTS.2005.88
DO - 10.1109/VTS.2005.88
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:34249830054
SN - 0769523145
SN - 9780769523149
T3 - Proceedings of the IEEE VLSI Test Symposium
SP - 418
EP - 423
BT - Proceedings - 23rd IEEE VLSI Test Symposium, VTS 2005
T2 - 23rd IEEE VLSI Test Symposium, VTS 2005
Y2 - 1 May 2005 through 5 May 2005
ER -