Power-aware SoC test planning for effective utilization of port-scalable testers

Abstract

Many system-on-chip (SoC) integrated circuits contain embedded cores with different scan frequencies. To better meet the test requirements for such heterogeneous SoCs, leading tester companies have recently introduced port-scalable testers, which can simultaneously drive groups of channels at different data rates. However, the number of tester channels available for scan testing is limited; therefore, a higher shift frequency can increase the test time for a core if the resulting test access architecture reduces the bit-width used to access it. We present a scalable test planning technique that exploits port scalability of testers to reduce SoC test time. We compare the proposed heuristic optimization method to two baseline methods based on prior works that use a single scan data rate for all embedded cores. We also propose a power-aware test planning technique to effectively utilize port-scalable testers under constraints of test power consumption. Experimental results are presented for power-aware test scheduling to illustrate the impact of power constraints on overall test time.