• ETRI Journal
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.475-485
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• 2006

Network-on-chip (NoC) is an emerging design paradigm intended to cope with future systems-on-chips (SoCs) containing numerous built-in cores. Since NoCs have some outstanding features regarding design complexity, timing, scalability, power dissipation and so on, widespread interest in this novel paradigm is likely to grow. The test strategy is a significant factor in the practicality and feasibility of NoC-based SoCs. Among the existing test issues for NoC-based SoCs, test access mechanism architecture and test scheduling particularly dominate the overall test performance. In this paper, we propose an efficient NoC-based SoC test scheduling algorithm based on a rectangle packing approach used for current SoC tests. In order to adopt the rectangle packing solution, we designed specific methods and configurations for testing NoC-based SoCs, such as test packet routing, test pattern generation, and absorption. Furthermore, we extended and improved the proposed algorithm using multiple test clocks. Experimental results using some ITC'02 benchmark circuits show that the proposed algorithm can reduce the overall test time by up to 55%, and 20% on average compared with previous works. In addition, the computation time of the algorithm is less than one second in most cases. Consequently, we expect the proposed scheduling algorithm to be a promising and competitive method for testing NoC-based SoCs.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.39B no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2014

This paper proposes an efficient test wrapper design that reduces overall test time in multi-core SoC. After initial local wrapper solution sets for all the cores are determined using well-known Combine algorithm, proposed algorithm selects a dominant core which consumes the longest test time in multi-core SoC. Then, the wrapper characteristics in the number of TAM wires and the test time for other cores are adjusted based on test time of the dominant core. For some specific cores, the number of TAM wires can be reduced by increasing its test time for design space exploration purposes. These modified wrapper characteristics are added to the previous wrapper solution set. By expanding previous local wrapper solution set to global wrapper solution set, overall test time for Multi-core SoC can be reduced by an efficient test scheduler. Effectiveness of the proposed wrapper is verified on ITC'02 benchmark circuits using $B^*$-tree based test scheduler. Our experimental results show that the test time is reduced by an average of 4.7% when compared to that of employing previous wrappers.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.44 no.11
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• pp.65-73
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• 2007

This paper introduces design-for-test (DFT) techniques for low-cost system-on-chip (SoC) test. We present a Scan-Test method that controls IEEE 1500 wrapper thorough IEEE 1149.1 SoC TAP (Test Access Port) and design an at-speed test clock generator for delay fault test. Test cost can be reduced by using small number of test interface pins and on-chip test clock generator because we can use low-price automated test equipments (ATE). Experimental results evaluate the efficiency of the proposed method and show that the delay fault test of different cores running at different clocks test can be simultaneously achieved.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.43 no.10 s.352
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• pp.74-79
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• 2006

Test Interface Controller (TIC) provided by ARM Ltd. is widely used for functional testing of System-on-Chip (SoC) adopting Advanced Microcontroller Bus Architecture (AMBA) bus system. Accordingly, this architecture has a deficiency of not being able to concurrently shifting in and out the structural scan test patterns through the TIC and AMBA bus. This paper introduces a new AMBA based Test Access Mechanism (ATAM) for speedy testing of SoCs embedding ARM cores. While preserving the compatability with the ARM TIC, since scan in and out operations can be performed simultaneously, test application time through the expensive Automatic Test Equipment (ATE) can be drastically reduced.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.48 no.2
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• pp.44-54
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• 2011

The goal of this paper is reducing the test time for AMBA-based SoC. To achieve this goal, the design technique that can test several cores concurrently by reusing AMBA as TAM is proposed. The additional control logic for structural parallel core test is minimized by reusing TIC which is originally used for functional test of AMBA. SoC reliability and test time reduction can be significantly achieved with the concurrent core test technique as well as functional test.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.61-71
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• 2003

Interconnect test for highly integrated environments like SoC, becomes more important as the complexity of a circuit increases. This importance is from two facts, test time and complete diagnosis. Since the interconnect test between IPs is based on the scan technology such as IEEE1149.1 and IEEE P1500, it takes long test time to apply test vectors serially through a long scan chain. Complete diagnosis is another important issue because a defect on interconnects are shown as a defect on a chip. But generally, interconnect test algorithms that need the short test time can not do complete diagnosis and algorithms that perform complete diagnosis need long test time. A new interconnect test algorithm is developed. The new algorithm can provide a complete diagnosis for all faults with shorter test length compared to the previous algorithms.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.5 no.6
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• pp.515-520
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• 2004

Core-based system-on-a-chip (SoC) designs present a number of test challenges. Two major problems that are becoming increasingly important are long application time during manufacturing test and high volume of test data. Highly efficient compression techniques have been proposed to reduce storage and application time for high volume data by exploiting the repetitive nature of test vectors. This paper proposes a new test data compression technique for SoC testing. In the proposed technique, compression is achieved by partitioning the test vector set and removing repeating segment. This process has $O(n^{-2})$ time complexity for compression with a simple hardware decoding circuitry. It is shown that the efficiency of the proposed compression technique is comparable with sophisticated software compression techniques with the advantage of easy and fast decoding.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.50 no.9
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• pp.60-67
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• 2013

Test cost reduction is necessary to test a complex System-on-a-Chip(SoC) which adopts various Intellectual Properties (IP). In this paper, test architecture with low pin count which is able to IP-based SoC test, using IEEE Std. 1149.7 and IEEE Std. 1500, is proposed. IEEE Std. 1500 provides independent access mechanism for each IP in IP-based SoC test. In this paper, just two test pins are required by composing that these independent access mechanism can be controlled by IEEE Std. 1149.7. The number of Chips which are tested at the same time is increased by reducing required test pin count at wafer and package level test, and consequently the overall manufacturing test cost will be reduced significantly.

• IT SoC Magazine
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• s.19
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• pp.37-42
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• 2007

이 글은 당사에서 개발 진행한 TDMB,ISDB-T등의 Moblie TV Receiver단의 Analog Front-End SIP들의 Test H/W, S/W제작 경험을 바탕으로 보다 효율적이고 성공적인 SIP 개발이 될 수 있도록 도움을 주고자 기술 하였다.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.1191-1195
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• 2009

We present the efficient test wrapper design methodology considering the layout distance of scan chain. To test the scan chains in SoC, the scan chains must be assigned to external TAM(Test Access Mechanism) lines. The scan chains in IP were placed and routed without any timing violation at normal mode. However, in test mode, the scan chains have the additional layout distance after TAM line assignment, which can cause the timing violation of flip-flops in scan chains. This paper proposes a new test wrapper design considering layout distance of scan chains with timing violation free.