As technology is advancing, larger and denser devices are being manufactured
with shorter time to market requirements. Identifying and resolving problems in
integrated circuits (ICs) are the main focus of the pre-silicon and post-silicon debug
process. As indicated in the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors
(ITRS), post-silicon debug is a major time consuming challenge that has significant
impact on the development cycle of a new chip. Since it is difficult to acquire the
internal signal values, conventional debug techniques typically involve performing a
binary search for failing vectors and performing mechanical measurement with a probing
needle. Silicon debug is a labor intensive task and requires much experience in
validating the first silicon.
Finding information about when (temporal) and where (spatial) failures occur is
the key issue in post-silicon debug. Test vectors and test applications are run on first
silicon to verify the functionality when it arrives. Scan chains and on-chip memories
have been used to provide the valuable internal signal observation information for the
silicon debug process. In this dissertation, a scan-based technique is presented to detect
the circuit misbehavior without halting the system. A debugging technique that uses a trace buffer is introduced to efficiently store a series of data obtained by a two
dimensional compaction technique. Debugging capability can be maximized by
observing the right set of signals to observe. A method for an automated selection of
signals to observe is proposed for efficient selection. Investigation in signal
observability is further extended to signal controllability in test point insertion. Noble
test point insertion techniques are presented to reduce the area overhead for test point insertion. / text
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UTEXAS/oai:repositories.lib.utexas.edu:2152/6622 |
| Date | 22 October 2009 |
| Creators | Yang, Joon Sung |
| Source Sets | University of Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Format | electronic |
| Rights | Copyright is held by the author. Presentation of this material on the Libraries' web site by University Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin was made possible under a limited license grant from the author who has retained all copyrights in the works. |
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