EDT Bandwidth Management in SoC Designs

This paper presents preemptive test application schemes for system-on-a-chip (SoC) designs with embedded deterministic test-based compression. The schemes seamlessly combine new test data reduction techniques with test scheduling algorithms and novel test access mechanisms devised for both input and output sides. In particular, they allow cores to interface with automatic test equipment through an optimized number of channels. They are well suited for SoC devices comprising both nonisolated cores, i.e., blocks that occasionally need to be tested simultaneously, and completely wrapped modules. Experimental results obtained for large industrial SoC designs illustrate feasibility of the proposed test application schemes and are reported herein.