Compactor independent fault diagnosis

• US 7,239,978 B2
• Filed: 08/23/2004
• Issued: 07/03/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 03/31/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Siemens Industry Software Limited (Siemens AG)
• Original Assignee: Mentor Graphics Corporation (Siemens AG)
• Inventors: Huang, Yu, Rajski, Janusz, Cheng, Wu-Tung, Tsai, Kun-Han, Tamarapalli, Nagesh
• Primary Examiner(s): Barlow; John
• Assistant Examiner(s): Le; Toan M.
• Application Number:
  US10/925,230
• Publication Number:
  US 20050222816A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,044 Days
• Field of Search: 702/185, 714/700, 714/25, 714/30, 714/729, 714/726, 714/732, 714/742
• US Class Current: 702/185
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 31/318547 Data generators or compressors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/267 Reconfiguring circuits for testing, e.g. LSSD, partitioning

Abstract

Methods, apparatus, and systems for performing fault diagnosis are disclosed herein. In certain disclosed embodiments, methods for diagnosing faults from compressed test responses are provided. For example, in one exemplary embodiment, a circuit description of an at least partially scan-based circuit-under-test and a compactor for compacting test responses captured in the circuit-under-test is received. A transformation function performed by the compactor to the test responses captured in the circuit-under-test is determined. A diagnostic procedure for evaluating uncompressed test responses is modified into a modified diagnostic procedure that incorporates the transformation function therein. Computer-readable media comprising computer-executable instructions for causing a computer to perform any of the disclosed methods are also provided. Likewise, computer-readable media comprising lists of fault candidates identified by any of the disclosed methods or circuit descriptions created or modified by the disclosed methods are provided.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving a failure log comprising one or more entries indicative of failing test responses captured in a circuit-under-test and compressed by a compactor, the circuit-under-test comprising scan cells that receive test responses from corresponding logic cones;

identifying one or more candidate logic cones for a selected entry of the failure log using a transformation function indicative of which logic cones in the circuit-under-test at least partially contribute to respective failing test responses;

finding fault candidates in the one or more candidate logic cones using a representation of the circuit-under-test; and

storing a list of the fault candidates in a computer-readable medium.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising, for a selected fault candidate, simulating one or more of the failing test patterns in a representation of the circuit-under-test and the compactor, the representation including the selected fault candidate.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the representation of the circuit-under-test and the compactor represents the scan cells of the circuit-under-test as being replaced by pseudo-scan-cells adapted to capture test responses after compression.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the transformation function comprises a mathematical representation of the compactor.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein one or more candidate logic cones are identified for multiple respective entries of the failure log, each of the multiple respective entries of the failure log being associated with a single test pattern, the method further comprising finding fault candidates at the intersection of the union of the identified candidate logic cones for the multiple respective entries of the failure log.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the compactor is a space compactor.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the compactor is an infinite input response compactor.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the compactor is a finite input response compactor.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the compactor comprises masking logic.

10. One or more computer-readable media comprising computer-executable instructions for causing a computer system to perform the method of claim 1.

11. One or more computer-readable media comprising a list of fault candidates determined by the method of claim 1.

12. A circuit having a repaired fault that was identified using the method of claim 1.

13. A method, comprising:

transforming a representation of a circuit-under-test into a representation of a transformed circuit-under-test,

storing the representation of the transformed circuit-under-test in a computer-readable medium;

wherein the circuit-under-test comprises scan cells that capture test responses from respective logic cones and a compactor that compresses the captured test responses, and

wherein the transformed circuit-under-test replaces one or more of the scan cells in the circuit-under-test with one or more pseudo-scan-cells configured to capture respective compacted test responses, the one or more pseudo-scan-cells being associated with corresponding logic cones in the transformed circuit-under-test via a representation of the compactor.

14. The method of claim 13, further comprising diagnosing faults in the circuit-under-test using the representation of the transformed circuit-under-test.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the diagnosing is performed using an effect-cause diagnostic procedure.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the effect-cause diagnostic procedure comprises determining a list of fault candidates by path tracing in the representation of the transformed circuit-under-test from one or more of the pseudo-scan-cells into respective associated candidate logic cones.

17. The method of claim 13, wherein the representation of the compactor in the representation of the transformed circuit-under-test indicates which logic cones in the circuit-under-test at least partially contribute to respective failing test responses without representing the Boolean function of the compactor.

18. One or more computer-readable media comprising computer-executable instructions for causing a computer system to perform the method of claim 13.

19. One or more computer-readable media comprising a list of fault candidates determined by the method of claim 13.

20. A circuit having a repaired fault that was identified using the method of claim 13.

21. A method, comprising:

receiving a failure log, the failure log being indicative of compressed, failing responses of a circuit-under-test to test patterns applied to the circuit-under-test, the failing responses having been first captured in scan cells of the circuit-under-test and then compressed by a compactor;

applying a mathematical representation of the compactor to one or more failing responses associated with one of the test patterns to identify one or more respective candidate logic cones wherein a fault causing the one or more failing responses might exist;

applying an effect-cause diagnostic procedure to the one or more respective candidate logic cones to produce diagnostic procedure results; and

storing the diagnostic procedure results in a computer-readable medium.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the effect-cause diagnostic procedure comprises path tracing into the one or more respective logic cones identified using a representation of the circuit-under-test, the path tracing being performed to determine a list of fault candidates.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein the path tracing is performed in parallel into multiple ones of the respective candidate logic cones.

24. The method of claim 22, wherein the list of fault candidates consists of fault candidates in the intersection of unions of the respective candidate logic cones.

25. The method of claim 22, further comprising, for at least one of the fault candidates, simulating application of one or more of the test patterns to the circuit-under-test and the compactor with the at least one of the fault candidates being present in the circuit-under-test.

26. The method of claim 21, wherein the mathematical representation of the compactor indicates which logic cones in the circuit-under-test at least partially contribute to corresponding failing test responses without representing the Boolean function of the compactor.

27. One or more computer-readable media comprising computer-executable instructions for causing a computer system to perform the method of claim 21.

28. One or more computer-readable media comprising a list of fault candidates determined by the method of claim 21.

29. A circuit having a repaired fault that was identified using the method of claim 21.

30. A method, comprising:

receiving information indicative of one or more failing test responses of a circuit-under-test to one or more test patterns applied to the circuit-under-test, the failing test responses being first captured in scan cells of the circuit-under-test and then compressed by a compactor;

identifying fault candidates for one or more of the failing test responses using a path-tracing technique applied to a representation of a transformed circuit-under-test, wherein the representation of the transformed circuit-under-test represents the failing test responses as being compacted first and then captured in pseudo-cell-scans; and

storing a list of the identified fault candidates in a computer-readable medium.

31. The method of claim 30, wherein the portion of the representation of the circuit-under-test associated with compacting the failing test responses comprises a transformed circuit description.

32. The method of claim 30, wherein the portion of the representation of the circuit-under-test associated with compacting the failing test responses comprises a mathematical relationship.

33. One or more computer-readable media comprising computer-executable instructions for causing a computer system to perform the method of claim 30.

34. One or more computer-readable media comprising a list of fault candidates determined by the method of claim 30.

35. A circuit having a repaired fault that was identified using the method of claim 30.

36. A method, comprising:

receiving a circuit description of an at least partially scan-based circuit-under-test and a compactor for compacting test responses captured in the circuit-under-test;

determining a transformation function performed by the compactor to the test responses captured in the circuit-under-test;

modifying a diagnostic procedure for evaluating uncompressed test responses into a modified diagnostic procedure that incorporates the transformation function therein; and

storing the diagnostic procedure in a computer-readable medium.

37. The method of claim 36, wherein the modified diagnostic procedure is an effect-cause diagnostic procedure.

38. The method of claim 36, wherein the modified diagnostic procedure comprises:

receiving a failure log of failing test responses observed in the circuit-under-test and compressed by the compactor;

identifying sets of fault candidates in logic cones associated with respective failing test responses; and

determining an intersection between the sets of fault candidates.

39. One or more computer-readable media comprising computer-executable instructions for causing a computer system to perform the method of claim 36.

40. One or more computer-readable media comprising a circuit description modified by the method of claim 36.

41. A circuit having a repaired fault that was identified using the method of claim 36.

42. A method, comprising:

receiving a circuit description of an at least partially scan-based circuit-under-test and a compactor for compacting test responses captured in scan cells of the circuit-under-test, the scan cells being located upstream of the compactor;

determining a transformation function performed by the compactor to the test responses captured in the scan cells of the circuit-under-test;

modifying the circuit description to remove the compactor and embed the transformation function upstream of the scan cells in the circuit-under-test, thereby replacing the scan cells with pseudo-scan-cells; and

storing the modified circuit description in a computer-readable medium.

43. The method of claim 42, further comprising performing diagnostics using the modified circuit description, the diagnostics being performed using a diagnostic procedure for evaluating uncompressed test responses.

44. One or more computer-readable media comprising computer-executable instructions for causing a computer system to perform the method of claim 42.

45. One or more computer-readable media comprising a circuit description modified by the method of claim 42.

46. A circuit having a repaired fault that was identified using the method of claim 42.