After write operations, BIST schemes for RAMs relying on signature analysis must compress the entire memory contents to update the reference signature. This paper introduces a new scheme for output data compression which avoids this overhead while retaining the benefits of signature analysis. The proposed technique is based on a new memory characteristic derived as the modulo-2 sum of all addresses pointing to non-zero cells. This characteristic can be adjusted concurrently with write operations by simple EXOR-operations on the initial characteristic and on the addresses affected by the change.
The paper introduces the new concept of symmetric transparent BIST for RAMs. This concept allows to skip the signature prediction phase of conventional transparent BIST approaches and therefore yields a significant reduction of test time. The hardware cost and the fault coverage of the new scheme remain comparable to that of a traditional transparent BIST scheme. In many cases, experimental studies even show a higher fault coverage obtained in shorter test time.
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