A Study for Design and Application of Self-Testing Comparator

자체시험 (Self-Testing) 특성 비교기(Comparator)설계와 응용에 관한 연구

This paper presents the implementation of comparator which is self-testing with respect to the faults caused by any single physical defect likely to occur in NMOS and CMOS integrated circuit. The goal is to use it for the fault-tolerant system. First, a new fault model for PLA(Programmable Logic Array) is presented. This model reflects several physical defects in VLSI circuits. It focuses on the designs based on PLA because VLSI chips are far too complex to allow detailed analysis of all the possible physical defects that can occur and of the effects on the operation of the circuit. Second, this paper shows that these design, which has been implemented with 2 level AND-ORor NOR-NOR circuit, are optimal in term of size. And it also presents a formal proof that a comparator implemented using NOR-NOR PLA, based on these design, is sol f-testing with respect to most single faults in the presented fault model. Finally, it discusses the application of the self-testing comparator as a building block for the implementation of the fault-tolerant system.