Scan designs can alleviate test difficulties of sequential circuits by replacing the memory elements with scannable registers. However, scan operations usually result in long test application time. Most classical methods to solving this problem either perform test compaction to obtain fewer test vectors or use multiple scan chain design to reduce the scan time. For a large system, test vector compaction is a time-consuming process, while multiple scan chains either require extra pin overhead or need the sharing of normal I/O and scan I/O pins. In this paper, we present a novel test methodology that not only substantially reduces the total test pattern number for multiple circuits but also allows a single input data line to support multiple scan chains. Our main idea is to explore the "sharing" property of test patterns among all circuits under test (CUT's). By appropriately connecting the inputs of all CUT's during the automatic test-pattern generation process such that the generated test patterns can be broadcast to all scan chains when the actual testing operation is executed, the above-mentioned problems can be solved effectively. Our method also provides a low-cost and high-performance method to integrate the boundary scan and scan architectures. Experimental results show that 157 test patterns are enough to detect all detectable faults in the ten ISCAS'85 combinational circuits, while 280 are enough for the ten largest ISCAS'89 scan-based sequential circuits.

Article Using a single input to support multiple scan chains Share on Authors: Kuen-Jong Lee Dept. of E.E, Nat'l Cheng-Kung U. Tainan, Taiwan 70101, R.O.C. Dept. of E.E, Nat'l Cheng-Kung U. Tainan, Taiwan 70101, R.O.C.View Profile , Jih-Jeen Chen Dept. of E.E, Nat'l Cheng-Kung U. Tainan, Taiwan 70101, R.O.C. Dept. of E.E, Nat'l Cheng-Kung U. Tainan, Taiwan 70101, R.O.C.View Profile , Cheng-Hua Huang Dept. of E.E, Nat'l Cheng-Kung U. Tainan, Taiwan 70101, R.O.C. Dept. of E.E, Nat'l Cheng-Kung U. Tainan, Taiwan 70101, R.O.C.View Profile Authors Info & Claims ICCAD '98: Proceedings of the 1998 IEEE/ACM international conference on Computer-aided designNovember 1998 Pages 74–78https://doi.org/10.1145/288548.288563Online:01 November 1998Publication History 157citation256DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations157Total Downloads256Last 12 Months0Last 6 weeks0 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my AlertsNew Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteGet Access