Test Data Compression Using Selective Encoding of Scan Slices

We present a selective a encoding method that reduces test data volume and test application time for scan testing of Intellectual Property (IP) cores. This method encodes the slices of test data that are fed to the scan chains in every clock cycle. To drive N scan chains, we use only c tester channels, where c = log(2) (N + 1)]+2. In the best case, we can achieve compression by a factor of N/c using only one tester clock cycle per slice. We derive a sufficient condition on the distribution of care bits that allows us to achieve the best-case compression. We also derive a probabilistic lower bound on the compression for a given care-bit density. Unlike popular compression methods such as Embedded Deterministic Test (EDT), the proposed approach is suitable for IP cores because it does not require structural information for fault simulation, dynamic compaction, or interleaved test generation. The on-chip decoder is small, independent of the circuit under test and the test set, and it can be shared between different circuits. We present compression results for a number of industrial circuits and compare our results to other recent compression methods targeted at IP cores.