Built-in self-test: Early developments and future trends

Abstract

This paper describes the early developments of Built-In Self-Test in retrospect and gives an outlook on future trends of this technique. The steps for eliminating the initial shortcomings, like silicon overhead, aliasing, and inefficient test patterns, which hindered the quick acceptance of self-test are discussed. New test challenges which are likely to be induced by the rapid progress in semiconductor technology are described. It is outlined how these problems can be solved by self-test.