Embedded fault diagnosis for digital logic exploiting regularity

Fault diagnosis for digital integrated circuits has become a matter of intense research in recent years. The reason is that only a fast feedback loop between IC production and testing can facilitate high figures of production yield in nanometer IC technologies. Looking at emerging technologies of IC built-in self repair, fault diagnosis “in the field” is a pre-condition for self-repair. However, then the availability of reference data for fault diagnosis becomes a crucial bottleneck because of limited memory resources. The paper tries to identify possible solutions to the problem, using specific properties of digital signal processing circuits.