A 2-D compaction method using macro block for post-silicon validation

The post-silicon validation has been an important step as the complexity of system on chip (SoC) increases. Conventional trace buffer based debug methods offer consecutive observability and real time debug, but the size constraint of the trace buffer still is a challenge. The proposed method uses 2-D compaction for expanding the depth of observation window in a trace buffer. Moreover, the macro block, which is used with 2-D compaction, offers tolerance to various error patterns as a virtual window. The errors identified by the 2-D compaction using the macro block are selectively captured by using the new tag map. The experimental results show that the proposed method enables the reduction of error misidentification.