• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.43 no.10 s.352
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• pp.74-79
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• 2006

Test Interface Controller (TIC) provided by ARM Ltd. is widely used for functional testing of System-on-Chip (SoC) adopting Advanced Microcontroller Bus Architecture (AMBA) bus system. Accordingly, this architecture has a deficiency of not being able to concurrently shifting in and out the structural scan test patterns through the TIC and AMBA bus. This paper introduces a new AMBA based Test Access Mechanism (ATAM) for speedy testing of SoCs embedding ARM cores. While preserving the compatability with the ARM TIC, since scan in and out operations can be performed simultaneously, test application time through the expensive Automatic Test Equipment (ATE) can be drastically reduced.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.475-485
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• 2006

Network-on-chip (NoC) is an emerging design paradigm intended to cope with future systems-on-chips (SoCs) containing numerous built-in cores. Since NoCs have some outstanding features regarding design complexity, timing, scalability, power dissipation and so on, widespread interest in this novel paradigm is likely to grow. The test strategy is a significant factor in the practicality and feasibility of NoC-based SoCs. Among the existing test issues for NoC-based SoCs, test access mechanism architecture and test scheduling particularly dominate the overall test performance. In this paper, we propose an efficient NoC-based SoC test scheduling algorithm based on a rectangle packing approach used for current SoC tests. In order to adopt the rectangle packing solution, we designed specific methods and configurations for testing NoC-based SoCs, such as test packet routing, test pattern generation, and absorption. Furthermore, we extended and improved the proposed algorithm using multiple test clocks. Experimental results using some ITC'02 benchmark circuits show that the proposed algorithm can reduce the overall test time by up to 55%, and 20% on average compared with previous works. In addition, the computation time of the algorithm is less than one second in most cases. Consequently, we expect the proposed scheduling algorithm to be a promising and competitive method for testing NoC-based SoCs.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.5 no.6
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• pp.515-520
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• 2004

Core-based system-on-a-chip (SoC) designs present a number of test challenges. Two major problems that are becoming increasingly important are long application time during manufacturing test and high volume of test data. Highly efficient compression techniques have been proposed to reduce storage and application time for high volume data by exploiting the repetitive nature of test vectors. This paper proposes a new test data compression technique for SoC testing. In the proposed technique, compression is achieved by partitioning the test vector set and removing repeating segment. This process has $O(n^{-2})$ time complexity for compression with a simple hardware decoding circuitry. It is shown that the efficiency of the proposed compression technique is comparable with sophisticated software compression techniques with the advantage of easy and fast decoding.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.41 no.9
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• pp.85-95
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• 2004

As the design complexity increases, it is a major problem that the size of test pattern is large and power consumption is high in scan, especially system-on-a-chip(SoC), with the automatic test equipment(ATE). Because static compaction of test patterns heads to higher power for testing, it is very hard to reduce the test pattern volume for low power testing. This paper proposes an efficient compression/decompression algorithm based on run-length coding for reducing the amount of test data for low power testing that must be stored on a tester and be transferred to SoC. The experimental results show that the new algorithm is very efficient by reducing the memory space for test patterns and the hardware overhead for the decoder.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.43 no.10 s.352
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• pp.140-150
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• 2006

In this paper, we present a new hardware architecture for testing various cores embedded in SoC. The conventional solutions need much testing time since only one core is tested at single test period. To enhance this, S-TAM, a novel test architecture, and its controller which enable parallel testing of various cores are proposed. S-TAM supports bus sharing to broadcast testing and cores to be tested are selected by using it. In addition, S-TAM controller enables the effective SoC test by simultaneous controlling the various test cores which are based on the different test architectures like IEEE 1149.1 and IEEE 1500.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2011.10a
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• pp.892-895
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• 2011

Power consumption during testing System-On-Chip (SOC) are becoming increasingly important as the IP core increases in SOC. We present a new algorithm to reduce the scan-in power using the modified scan latch reordering and clock gating. We apply scan latch reordering technique for minimizing the hamming distance in scan vectors. Also, during scan latch reordering, the don't care inputs in scan vectors are assigned for low power. Also, we apply the clock gated scan cells. Experimental results for ISCAS 89 benchmark circuits show that reduced low power scan testing can be achieved in all cases.

• Journal of KIISE:Computer Systems and Theory
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• v.35 no.6
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• pp.284-292
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• 2008

The density of Memory has been increased by great challenge for memory technology; therefore, elements of memory become more smaller than before and the sensitivity to faults increases. As a result of these changes, memory testing becomes more complex. In addition, as the number of storage elements per chip increases, the test cost becomes more remarkable as the cost per transistor drops. Recent development in system-on-chip(SoC) technology makes it possible to incorporate large embedded memories into a chip. However, it also complicates the test process, since usually the embedded memories cannot be controlled from the external environment. We present a ARM processor-programmable built-in self-test(BIST) scheme suitable for embedded memory testing in the SoC environment. The proposed BIST circuit can be programmed vis an on-chip microprocessor.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.129-140
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• 2008

In this paper, we propose a novel ant colony optimization (ACO)-based test scheduling method for testing network-on-chip (NoC)-based systems-on-chip (SoCs), on the assumption that the test platform, including specific methods and configurations such as test packet routing, generation, and absorption, is installed. The ACO metaheuristic model, inspired by the ant's foraging behavior, can autonomously find better results by exploring more solution space. The proposed method efficiently combines the rectangle packing method with ACO and improves the scheduling results by dynamically choosing the test-access-mechanism widths for cores and changing the testing orders. The power dissipation and variable test clock mode are also considered. Experimental results using ITC'02 benchmark circuits show that the proposed algorithm can efficiently reduce overall test time. Moreover, the computation time of the algorithm is less than a few seconds in most cases.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.93-100
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• 2008

In this paper, we address a novel simulated annealing(SA)-based test scheduling method for testing network-on-chip (NoC)-based systems-on-chip(SoCs), on the assumption that the test platform proposed in [1] is installed. The proposed method efficiently mixed the rectangle packing method with SA and improved the scheduling results by locally changing the test access mechanism(TAM) widths for cores and the testing orders. Experimental results using ITC'02 benchmark circuits show that the proposed algorithm can efficiently reduce the overall test time.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.321-327
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• 2003

Testing time and power consumption during the testing of SoCs are becoming increasingly important with an increasing volume of test data in intellectual property cores in SoCs. This paper presents a new algorithm to reduce the scan-in power and test data volume using a modified scan latch reordering algorithm. We apply a scan latch reordering technique to minimize the column hamming distance in scan vectors. During scan latch reordering, the don't-care inputs in the scan vectors are assigned for low power and high compression. Experimental results for ISCAS 89 benchmark circuits show that reduced test data and low power scan testing can be achieved in all cases.