Sequential Test Generation Based on Preferred Primary Input Cubes

Abstract

It was shown earlier that certain primary input values have a negative effect on the fault coverage of a functional test sequence when they appear repeatedly in the sequence. A gate-level sequential test generation procedure based on this observation computed a primary input cube ${c}$ with preferred values, and generated random functional test sequences that conformed to ${c}$ with a high probability $ {0.5 \leq p . This procedure selected values for ${p}$ out of a set of possible values, and assigned the same value of ${p}$ to all the primary inputs. Motivated by the low computational complexity of this procedure, this paper addresses the selection of ${p}$ and the possibility of using different values of ${p}$ for different primary inputs. The goal is to increase the fault coverage and reduce the number of functional test sequences. The procedure described in this paper adjusts a functional test sequence to a circuit by complementing values that conflict with ${c}$ . The procedure requires fewer functional test sequences to reach or exceed the fault coverage of the earlier procedure for benchmark circuits. The procedure can be applied to any functional test sequence or set of functional test sequences.