A static test compaction technique for combinational circuits based on independent fault clustering

Abstract

Testing system-on-chip involves applying huge amounts of test data, which is stored in the tester memory and then transferred to the circuit under test during test application. Therefore, practical techniques, such as test compression and compaction, are required to reduce the amount of test data in order to reduce both the total testing time and the memory requirements for the tester. In this paper, a new static compaction algorithm for combinational circuits is presented. The algorithm is referred to as independent fault clustering. It is based on a new concept called test vector decomposition. Experimental results for benchmark circuits demonstrate the effectiveness of the new static compaction algorithm.