Observation-Oriented ATPG and Scan Chain Disabling for Capture Power Reduction

Abstract

Eliminating the excessive test power for integrated circuits is a strict challenge within the nanometer era. This method combines test pattern generation with the scan chain disabling technique to achieve low capture power testing under the single stuck-at fault model. Testability analysis is exploited to assist in the test pattern generation process to generate the observation-oriented test patterns. In order to direct fault effects to the frequently-used circuit outputs, unbalanced observability costs are purposely assigned to circuit outputs to introduce unequal propagation probability. Observation-aware scan chain clustering is then performed through a weighted compatibility analysis to densely cluster the frequently-used scan cells into scan chains. Consequently, more scan chains can be disabled in the capture cycle and significant power reduction can be achieved without affecting the fault coverage. To simultaneously consider the reduction in large test data volume and capture power, the power-aware test vector compaction algorithm is also performed. Experimental results for the large ISCAS'89 benchmark circuits show that significant improvements can be simultaneously achieved including 71.7 % of capture power reduction, 43.7 % of total power reduction, 24.3 % of peak power reduction and 98.0 % of test data compaction ratios averagely. Results for three large ITC'99 benchmark circuits also demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method for the practical-scale circuits.