IDDQ: you heard the hype, but what´s really coming?

I_DDQ testing is as old as CMOS IC technology itself. In the last 20 years various companies have been successful in using I_DDQ testing where applications demanded high quality and high reliability ICs, while many others have failed. Failure to be successful with I_DDQ has many causes: it is too slow for production testing, the yield loss too great, ICs are leaking too much current, the process is too leaky, nobody can select the vectors. I_DDQ testing has never broken through into the mainstream of IC testing for many reasons. The author assesses whether this is going to happen in 1996 or whether this is just another cyclical re-appearance of an old idea