Bandwidth Analysis of Functional Interconnects Used as Test Access Mechanism
Journal of Electronic Testing: Theory and Applications
Test pin count reduction for NoC-based test delivery in multicore SOCs
DATE '12 Proceedings of the Conference on Design, Automation and Test in Europe
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Test data travels through a System-on-Chip (SOC) from the chip pins to the module-under-test and vice versa via a Test Access Mechanism (TAM). Conventionally, a TAM is implemented with dedicated wires. However, also existing functional interconnect, such as a bus or Network-on-Chip (NOC), can be reused as TAM. This will reduce the overall design effort and the silicon area. For a given module, its test set, and maximal bandwidth that the functional interconnect can offer between ATE and module-under-test, our approach designs a test wrapper for the module-under-test such that the test length is minimized. Unfortunately, it is unavoidable that with the test dataalso unused (idle) bits are transported. This paper presents a TAM bandwidth utilization analysis and techniques for idle bits reduction, to minimize thetest length. We classify the idle bits into four types which explain the reason for bandwidth under-utilization and pinpoint design improvement opportunities. Experimental results show an average bandwidth utilization of 80%, while the remaining 20% is consumed by the idle bits.