Abstract
Test pattern generation is one of most difficult problems encountered in automating the design of logic circuits. The goal is to obtain the highest fault coverage with the minimum number of test patterns for a given circuit and fault set. although there have been many deterministic algorithms and heuristics the problem is still highly complex and time-consuming. Therefore new approach-es are needed to augment the existing techniques. This paper considers the problem of test pattern improvement for combinational circuits as a restricted subproblem of the test pattern generation. The problem is to maximize the fault coverage with a fixed number of test patterns for a given cir-cuit and fault set. We propose a new approach by use of a genetic algorithm. In this approach the genetic algorithm evolves test patterns to improve their fault coverage. A fault simulation is used to compute the fault coverage of the test patterns Experimental results show that the genetic algorithm based approach can achieve higher fault coverages than traditional techniques for most combinational circuits. Another advantage of the approach is that the genetic algorithm needs no detailed knowledge of faulty circuits under test.