Oscillation Frequency Estimation for Detecting Feedback Bridging Faults

When a feedback bridging fault is activated in a circuit, logical oscillation may occur at a signal line. If the oscillation appears, the fault may not be detected by logic testing. In order to detect such bridging faults, output logic values of the circuit should be measured at higher frequency than frequency of the logical oscillation. In this paper, a method fur estimating the maximum frequency of logical oscillation is proposed to detect such bridging faults in a circuit by logic testing. Also, it is shown by some experiments that such bridging faults can be detected by measuring output logic values at the frequency obtained by the method.