DESIGN OF SELF-DIAGNOSTIC BOARDS BY MULTIPLE SIGNATURE ANALYSIS

A new design approach, based on multiple signature analysis, for self- diagnostic boards is presented. For this approach, test responses from all chips on the board are compressed into space-time signatures usin g nonbinary multiple error-correcting codes, and faulty chips are iden tified by analyzing relations between distortions in these signatures. This approach results in a considerable reduction of a hardware overh ead, required for diagnostics, as compared with the straightforward ap proach where separate signatures are computed for each chip on the boa rd. The diagnostic approach presented can also be used for identificat ion of faulty boards in a system or for faulty processors in a multipr ocessor environment.