State of the Art on Post-Silicon Validation

Abstract

We provide in-depth discussion for trace-based debug strategy and review recent advancements in this important area. In particular, we discuss the following issues in trace-based debug solution: Out of the large amount of state elements in the circuit, which signals should we choose to monitor and trace to provide high visibility to the CUD? How do we design the trace data transfer module to provide enough observation flexibility while keeping the associated DfD overhead low? How can we compress the large volume of trace data effectively so as to make efficient use of the limited trace bandwidth provided by trace buffers and/or trace ports? How do we control the signal tracing effectively to obtain highly-qualified trace data?.