A Flexible Framework for the Automatic Generation of SBST Programs

作者：Riefert Andreas^*; Cantoro Riccardo; Sauer Matthias; Reorda Matteo Sonza; Becker Bernd

来源：IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) Systems, 2016, 24(10): 3055-3066.

DOI：10.1109/TVLSI.2016.2538800

• Automatic software-based self-test (SBST)
• functional ATPG
• microprocessor test
• SBST
• SBST for in-field test

Software-based self-test (SBST) techniques are used to test processors and processor cores against permanent faults introduced by the manufacturing process or to perform infield test in safety-critical applications. However, the generation of an SBST program is usually associated with high costs as it requires significant manual effort of a skilled engineer with in-depth knowledge about the processor under test. In this paper, we propose an approach for the automatic generation of SBST programs. First, we detail an automatic test pattern generation (ATPG) framework for the generation of functional test sequences. Second, we describe the extension of this framework with the concept of a validity checker module (VCM), which allows the specification of constraints with regard to the generated sequences. Third, we use the VCM to express typical constraints that exist when SBST is adopted for in-field test. In our experimental results, we evaluate the proposed approach with a microprocessor without interlocked pipeline stages (MIPS)-like microprocessor. The results show that the proposed method is the first approach able to automatically generate SBST programs for both end-of-manufacturing and in-field test whose fault efficiency is superior to those produced by state-of-the-art manual approaches.

• 出版日期2016-10