Jaehoon Song

Design of Test Access Mechanism for AMBA-Based System-on-a-Chip

A test interface controller (TIC) provided by ARM Ltd. is widely used for functional testing of system-on-a-chip (SoC) which adopts an advanced microcontroller bus architecture (AMBA) bus system. Unfortunately, this architecture has the deficiency of not being able to concurrently shift 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. Since scan-in and out operations can be performed simultaneously, test application time on the expensive automatic test equipment (ATE) can be drastically reduced while preserving the compatibility with the ARM TIC.

Efficient Parallel Scan Test Technique for Cores on AMBA-based SoC

Today’s System-on-a-Chip (SoC) is designed with reusable IP cores to meet short time-tomarket requirements. However, the increasing cost of testing becomes a big burden in manufacturing a highly integrated SoC. In this paper, an efficient parallel scan test technique is introduced to minimize the test application time. Multiple scan enable signals are adopted to implement scan architecture to achieve optimal test application time for the test patterns scheduled for concurrent scan test. Experimental results show that testing times are considerably reduced with little area overhead.

Low-Cost Scan Test for IEEE-1500-Based SoC

In this paper, a reduced-pin-count-testing technique is presented to control the IEEE-1500 wrapper through the IEEE-1149.1 TAP for scan delay test. By using only the IEEE- 1149.1 TAP control pins as test-access pins and by embedding an on-chip test clock generator, low-cost automated test equipment (ATE) can be efficiently utilized to reduce testing costs. Experiments show the effectiveness of our technique in utilizing the ATE channels and scan delay testing.

Highly Compact Interconnect Test Patterns for Crosstalk and Static Faults

The effect of crosstalk-induced errors becomes more significant in high-performance circuits and systems. In this paper, compact crosstalk test patterns are introduced for a system-on-a-chip and board level interconnects considering physically effective aggressors. By being able to target multiple victim lines, 6n, where n is the number of nets patterns are drastically reduced to a constant number 6D, where D indicates the effective distance among interconnect nets. The test quality for static and crosstalk faults are completely preserved with 6D patterns.

An Efficient SoC Test Technique by Reusing On/Off-Chip Bus Bridge

Todays system-on-a-chip (SoC) is designed with reusable intellectual property cores to meet short time-to-market requirements. However, the increasing cost of testing becomes a big burden in manufacturing a highly integrated SoC. In this paper, an efficiently testable design technique is introduced for an SoC with an on/off-chip bus bridge for the on-chip advanced high-performance bus and off-chip peripheral-component-interconnect bus. The bridge is exploited by maximally reusing the bridge function to achieve efficient functional and structural testing. The testing time can be significantly reduced by increasing the number of test channels and shortening the test-control protocols. Experimental results show that area overhead and testing times are considerably reduced in both functional- and structural-test modes. The proposed technique can be extended to the other types of on/off-chip bus bridges.

Parallel CRC Logic Optimization Algorithm for High Speed Communication Systems

This paper presents a new optimization algorithm for designing parallel cyclic redundancy check (CRC) circuits widely adopted to detect burst errors in high-speed communications. Our heuristic algorithm is focused on minimizing the logic level and finding XOR terms shared as many as possible. An Ethernet 32-bit CRC generator, which was designed and mapped to FPGA and a standard cell library, shows the superiority of our approach in reducing the delay and area overhead

Efficient Use of Unused Spare Columns to Improve Memory Error Correcting Rate

In the deep sub-micron ICs, growing amounts of on-die memory and scaling effects make embedded memories increasingly vulnerable to reliability and yield problems. Spare columns are often included in memories to repair defective cells or bit lines during production test. In many cases, the repair process will not use all spare columns. Schemes have been proposed to exploit these unused spare columns to store additional check bits which can be used to reduce the miscorrection probability for triple errors in single error correction -- double error detection (SEC-DED). These additional check bits increase the dimensions of the parity check matrix (H-matrix) requiring extra area and delay overhead. A method is proposed in this paper to efficiently fill the extra rows of the H-matrix on the basis of similarity of logic between the other rows. Optimization of the whole H-matrix is accomplished through logic sharing within a feasible operating time resulting in the reduced area and delay overhead.

Interconnect Delay Fault Test on Boards and SoCs with Multiple Clock Domains

This paper introduces an efficient interconnect delay fault test (IDFT) controller on boards and SoCs with IEEE 1149.1 and IEEE 1500 wrappers. By capturing the transition signals launched during one system clock, interconnect delay faults operated by different system clocks can be effectively tested with our technique. The IDFT controller proposed does not require any modification on boundary scan cells, instead very simple logic needs to be plugged around the TAP controller. Complete compatibility with the IEEE 1149.1 and IEEE 1500 standards is preserved and the superiority of this approach is verified through design experiments

An Efficient Secure Scan Design for an SoC Embedding AES Core

This poster presents an efficient secure scan design based on a fake key to protect a secret key from scan-based side channel attack. This technique targeted for an SoC embedding an Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) core can be adopted without requiring any modification to the functional body of the IP core, thus overheads for area, timing, and power are negligible while preserving the compatibility with the IEEE1149.1 standard.

The Adsorption Behaviors of Citric Acid on Abrasive Particles in Cu CMP Slurry

The interaction between Cu surface and abrasive particles in slurry solution was characterized. The adsorption behavior of the citrate ions was dependent on the pH of the slurry and the concentration of the citric acid. The adsorption of citrate ions generated a highly negative charge on the alumina surface and shifted isoelectric point (IEP) to lower pH values. The Cu removal rate of alumina slurry was higher than that of colloidal silica based slurry in the investigated pH ranges. Although lower friction forces of Cu were observed in alumina based slurry of pH 4, 6 and 8, a higher friction force was observed at pH 2. This high friction force was attributed to the positive zeta potential and greater adhesion force of particle. It indicates that the magnitudes of particle adhesions on Cu surfaces in slurries can be directly related to the frictional behavior during CMP process.