Data-Independent Pattern Run-Length Compression for Testing Embedded Cores in SoCs

This paper presents a new compression technique for testing the intellectual property (IP) cores in system-on-chips. The pattern run-length compression applies the well-known run-length coding to equal and complementary consecutive patterns of the precomputed test data. No structural information of the IP cores is required by the encoding procedure. A data-independent decompressor can be realized by the embedded processor or on-chip circuitry. The decompressed test set can be flexibly applied to a single-scan or multiple-scan chain of each core-under-test. Experiments on ISCAS-89 benchmarks show that the new technique results in superior compression performance. The test application time is also significantly reduced