The objective of manufacturing test is to separate the faulty circuits from the good circuits after they have been manufactured. Three problems encompassed by this task will be mentioned here.
First, the reduction of the power consumed during test. The behavior of the circuit during test is modified due to scan insertion and other testing techniques. Due to this, the power consumed during test can be abnormally large, up to several times the power consumed during functional mode. This can result in a good circuit to fail the test or to be damaged due to heating.
Second, how to modify the design so that it is easily testable. Since not every possible digital circuit can be tested properly it is necessary to modify the design to alter its behavior during test. This modification should not alter the functional behavior of the circuit. An example of this is test point insertion, a technique aimed at reducing test time and decreasing the number of faulty circuits that pass the test.
Third, the creation of a test set for a given design that will both properly accomplish the task and require the least amount of time possible to be applied. The precision in separation of faulty circuits from good circuits depends on the application for which the circuit is intended and, if possible, must be maximized. The test application time is should be as low as possible to reduce test cost.
This dissertation contributes to the discipline of manufacturing test and will encompass advances in the afore mentioned areas. First, a method to reduce the power consumed during test is proposed. Second, in the design modification area, a new algorithm to compute test points is proposed. Third, in the test set creation area, a new algorithm to reduce test set application time is introduced. The three algorithms are scalable to current industrial design sizes. Experimental results for the three methods show their effectiveness.