<p>Timing-related defects are becoming increasingly important in nanometer-technology integrated circuits (ICs). Small delay variations induced by crosstalk, process variations, power-supply noise, as well as resistive opens and shorts can potentially cause timing failures in a design, thereby leading to quality and reliability concerns. All these effects are noticeable in today's technologies and they are likely to become more prominent in the next-generation process technologies~\cite{itrs2007}.</p><p>The detection of small-delay defects (SDDs) is difficult because of the small size of the introduced delay. Although the delay introduced by each SDD is small, the overall impact can be significant if the target path is critical, has low slack, or includes many SDDs. The overall delay of the path may become larger than the clock period, causing circuit failure or temporarily incorrect results. As a result, the detection of SDDs typically requires fault excitation through least-slack paths. However, widely-used automatic test-pattern generation (ATPG) techniques are not effective at exciting small delay defects. On the other hand, the usage of commercially available timing-aware tools is expensive in terms of pattern count inflation and very high test-generation times. Furthermore, these tools do not target real physical defects.</p><p>SDDs are induced not only by physical defects, but also by run-time variations such as crosstalk and power-supply noise. These variations are ignored by today's commercial ATPG tools. As a result, new methods are required for comprehensive coverage of SDDs.</p><p>Test data volume and test application time are also major concerns for large industrial circuits. In recent years, many compression techniques have been proposed and evaluated using industrial designs. However, these methods do not target sequence- or timing-dependent failures while compressing the test patterns. Since timing-related failures in high-performance integrated circuits are now increasingly dominated by SDDs, it is necessary to develop timing-aware compression techniques.</p><p>This thesis addresses the problem of selecting the most effective test patterns for detecting SDDs. A new gate and interconnect delay-defect probability measure is defined to model delay variations for nanometer technologies. The proposed technique intelligently selects the best set of patterns for SDD detection from a large pattern set generated using timing-unaware ATPG. It offers significantly lower computational complexity and it excites a larger number of long paths compared to previously proposed timing-aware ATPG methods. It is shown that, for the same pattern count, the selected patterns are more effective than timing-aware ATPG for detecting small delay defects caused by resistive shorts, resistive opens, process variations, and crosstalk. The proposed technique also serves as the basis for an efficient SDD-aware test compression scheme. The effectiveness of the proposed technique is highlighted for industrial circuits.</p><p>In summary, this research is targeted at the testing of SDDs caused by various underlying reasons. The proposed techniques are expected to generate high-quality and compact test patterns for various types of defects in nanometer ICs. The results of this research are expected to provide low-cost and effective test methods for nanometer devices, and they will lead to higher shipped-product quality.</p> / Dissertation

Bakgrunden till denna rapport är att det sportvarumärke jag samarbetat med ville utveckla en modell av längdskidåkningsjacka som fanns i deras sortiment. Undersökningen gällde att identifiera förbättringspunkter på en dam- och herrvariant av denna jacka. Avsikten var att bevara plaggens design och genom förändringar i mönstrens konstruktion förbättra passform och rörelsefrihet, och därigenom plaggets funktion. Genom att konstruera, sy toiler och prova av dessa på provmodeller, har rörelsefrihet och passform kunnat utvärderas. Resultatet visade att viktiga punkter var raglanärmens konstruktion, böjningen av ärmen, kragens form, ärmhålsdjup och placering av skärlinjer. Det blev också tydligt att kombinationen av designerns och konstruktörens kunskaper tidigt i processen är a och o för ett lyckat resultat. En tydlig kommunikation mellan dessa parter kan minska antalet provplagg under produktutvecklingen.Ämnen som också behandlats under arbetet är gradering, produktspecificering och deras betydelse för plagg och produktion. I undersökningen har jag även tittat på möjligheter till ytterligare utveckling av jackornas funktion om designen kan förändras, till exempel genom att flytta skärningar och på så vis ändra modellens utseende.This study was made due to a sports brand wanting me to develop a style of cross country ski jacket that are currently part of their collection. The study contained identifying areas of possible improvement in both a men and women´s jacket. The mission was to keep the design of the jacket and on the same time improve the fit and ease of movement in the garment (and thereby the function). Through analysis of style samples, pattern construction, sewing of proto samples and fittings on models, the fit and ease of movement has been evaluated. The results are that important garment elements are the neck width, scye depth, construction of the raglan sleeve, the pre-bent sleeve and the placement of cut lines. A conclusion is that to reach a functional and nice looking garment, the designer and the pattern constructor need to cooperate in the product development phase. Good communication between these two departments can reduce the number of proto samples that has to be made.Pattern grading, product specifications and their impact on the style and production process are subjects that are also presented and discussed in this report. During the project I have also studied the possibilities of further development through style design changes. / Program: Designteknikerutbildningen