DEVELOPING AND IMPLEMENTING DIGITAL SYSTEMS TESTING COURSE FOR ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY CURRICULUM

Digital systems have penetrated in all aspects of everyday life - starting from household ovens to professional supercomputers. As such, curriculum in electrical, computer, and telecommunication engineering disciplines incorporate the basics of digital systems as a mandatory course. Such courses traditionally contain the design aspects of digital systems. Testing of such systems is seldom covered in those courses 1, 2. However, testing of such rapidly growing systems is both complex and costly 3. As a result, it has become an important part of the overall life cycle of any digital system. Due to its importance and significance in the real world, digital system testing needs to be accommodated in the curriculum of the above mentioned disciplines. Testing of combinational and sequential circuits, scan testing, Boundary Scan Testing (BST) of integrated circuits and their assembly are quite relevant in this respect. Also, Built-In Self Test (BIST) of complex systems, memory and processor testing and testing of cellular arrays are important. This paper presents an outline of such a course with laboratory activities and assessment strategies. Also, it assesses the performance of students in related courses in order to justify the appropriateness of such course in the above mentioned engineering disciplines.