Crosstalk-Insensitive Method for Testing of Delay Faults in Interconnects Between Cores in SoCs

Abstract

A method for reliable measurement of interconnect delays is presented in the paper. The mode of test vectors generation never induces crosstalks. That is why the delay measurement is reliable. Also, minimization of ground bounce noises and reduction of power consumption during the test is an additional advantage. The presented method allows also localizing and identifying static faults of both stuck-at (SaX) and short types. The paper deals with the hardware that is necessary for implementing the method. The techniques for test data compression, that allow substantial reduction of data volume transferred between SoC and ATE, are also proposed.496

A March-CL test for interconnection faults of SOC

“…As growing number of IP cores in SOC, interconnections are suffered many types of faults caused by material defects, technological process flows or design imperfection [2]. As shown in Fig, 1, main types are stuck, bridge and delay faults.…”

“…However, continuously growing number of IP cores integrated in SOC causes interconnection between IP more and more. Furthermore shrinks of feature size, especially when contemporary deep submicron technology (DSM) and working frequency up to multiple GHzs, make crosstalk and delay of interconnection be a major issue [2]. Therefore, interconnection test cannot be neglected as before.…”