Test Configurations for Diagnosing Faulty Links in NoC Switches

The paper proposes a new concept of diagnosing faulty links in network-on-a-chip (NoC) designs. The method is based on functional fault models and it implements packet address driven test configurations. As previous works have shown, such configurations can be applied for achieving near-100 per cent structural fault coverage for the network switches. The main novel contribution of this paper is to extend the use of test configurations for diagnosis purposes and to propose a method for locating faults in the NoC interconnection infrastructure. Additionally, a new concept of functional switch faults, called link faults, is introduced. The approach is well scalable (complexity is square root of the number of switches) and it is capable of unambiguously pinpointing the faulty links inside the switching network.