Fast signature computation for BIST linear compactors

Signature computation for linear compactors in a BIST environment is a computationally intensive process. In this paper, a fast compaction simulation algorithm is presented which uses superposition and look-up tables. While keeping memory requirements reasonable, this algorithm has a speedup advantage of at least one order of magnitude over traditional algorithms, and offers a threefold speedup over recently published “fast” algorithms. Our algorithm is also applicable to any linear compactor - while existing algorithms are restricted to only one type of compactor. Simulation results comparing the speed and memory requirements of the proposed compaction algorithm to that of existing compaction algorithms are given