Multi Background Memory Testing

Analysis of multibackground memory testing techniques

“…In the case of multibackground memory tests, backgrounds play a very important role in the final outcome. As was shown and investigated in (Yarmolik and Mrozek, 2007), different subsets of backgrounds can give different subsets of detectable faults for a selected memory test. The selection of an optimal set of backgrounds to get the highest fault coverage is still an open issue and there are no known algorithms for optimal background generation and construction in the case of more than four iterations of the test.…”

“…. , m} as a metric were proposed and experimentally analysed in (Yarmolik and Mrozek, 2007). Based on this metric, the following statement was formulated and experimentally validated (Yarmolik and Mrozek, 2007;Yarmolik, 2008): This statement can be used for selecting the optimal values of background for memory tests generating only one pattern for k neighboring memory cells like the MATS+ and PS (4N) tests.…”

“…However, they can be modified to get detection abilities for NPSFs. Based on traditional March algorithms, various approaches have been proposed to detect NPSFs, such as the tiling method (Goor, 1991;Hayes, 1975), the twogroup method (Goor, 1991;Hayes, 1980), the row-March algorithm (Franklin and Saluja, 1996), transparent testing (Cockburn, 1995;Karpovsky and Yarmolik, 1994;Nicolaidis, 1996;Voyiatzis, 2006), pseudo-exhaustive testing (Karpovsky et al, 1995), testing based on different address sequences (Sokol and Yarmolik, 2006;Yarmolik, 2008) and different address seeds (Yarmolik, 2008), and the multibackground method (Yarmolik and Mrozek, 2007).…”

“…For any address order and memory background, the number of detectable memory faults will be the same and can be calculated according to the structure and properties of the memory test (Niggemeyer et al, 1998;Yarmolik and Mrozek, 2007). In the case of multibackground memory tests, backgrounds play a very important role in the final outcome.…”

“…The main goal of this paper is to compare the efficiency of multibackground March tests (in terms of pattern sensitive fault detection) based on standard backgrounds (Goor, 1991;Karpovsky and Yarmolik, 1994;Cheng et al, 2002) and the optimal one, which was proposed by the author in (Yarmolik and Mrozek, 2007;192 I. Mrozek Mrozek and Yarmolik, 2008b). The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 provides an overview of pattern sensitive faults, their types and definitions.…”