Software-Based Self-Testing of Embedded Processors
IEEE Transactions on Computers
Test set development for cache memory in modern microprocessors
IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) Systems
A Software-Based Test Methodology for Direct-Mapped Data Cache
ATS '08 Proceedings of the 2008 17th Asian Test Symposium
On the Generation of Functional Test Programs for the Cache Replacement Logic
ATS '09 Proceedings of the 2009 Asian Test Symposium
Software-Based Self-Test of Set-Associative Cache Memories
IEEE Transactions on Computers
Effective software-based self-test strategies for on-line periodic testing of embedded processors
IEEE Transactions on Computer-Aided Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems
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The flexibility that allows the application of different March tests is a critical requirement for on-line testing of memory arrays. In a previous study, we have introduced a low-cost software-based self test (SBST) program development methodology for on-line periodic testing of L1 caches that utilizes direct cache access (DCA) instructions and exploits the native monitoring hardware available in modern architectures. In this brief, we discuss a multithreaded optimization of this SBST methodology that exploits the thread level parallelism of multithreaded multicore architectures in order to speed up March test execution by elaborating the low level multiple subbank cache organization. The effectiveness of the methodology and its multithreaded optimization is demonstrated on the L1 caches of OpenSPARC T1 processor. Our results showed a speedup of more than 1.7 when the multithreaded optimization is applied and an acceptable performance overhead (less than 11%), even in intensive periodic test scenarios.