• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.5 no.1 s.8
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• pp.43-51
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• 2001

As the density of memories increases, unwanted interference between cells and coupling noise between bit-lines are increased. And testing high-density memories for a high degree of fault coverage can require either a relatively large number of test vectors or a significant amount of additional test circuitry. So far, conventional test algorithms have focused on faults between neighborhood cells, not neighborhood bit-lines. In this paper, a new test algorithm for neighborhood bit-line sensitive faults (NBLSFs) based on the NPSFs(Neighborhood Pattern Sensitive Faults) is proposed. And the proposed algorithm does not require any additional circuit. Instead of the conventional five-cell or nine-cell physical neighborhood layouts to test memory cells, a three-cell layout which is minimum size for NBLSFs detection is used. Furthermore, to consider faults by maximum coupling noise by neighborhood bit-lines, we added refresh operation after write operation in the test procedure(i.e.,$write{\rightarrow}\;refresh{\rightarrow}\;read$). Also, we show that the proposed algorithm can detect stuck-at faults, transition faults, coupling faults, conventional pattern sensitive faults, and neighborhood bit-line sensitive faults.