Cellular-automata-array-based diagnosis of board level faults

Abstract

A novel scheme for board level fault diagnosis based on cellular automata array (CAA) is presented. In the proposed diagnosis scheme, the output responses of the chips are encoded by applying the strategy of CA-based byte error correcting code. The encoded response symbols for different test vectors are compressed to a signature. The decoding scheme of byte error correcting code is subsequently employed to detect the faulty chips on the board. The CAA-based design for the fault diagnosis strategy results in a simple and modular test structure that is well suited for VLSI implementation. The scheme can be applied for testing and diagnosis of multichip modules (MCMs) as well.