CELLULAR-AUTOMATA-ARRAY-BASED DIAGNOSIS OF BOARD-LEVEL FAULTS

A novel scheme for board level fault diagnosis based on Cellular Autom ata Array (CAA) is presented. In the proposed diagnosis scheme, the ou tput responses of the chips are encoded by applying the strategy of CA -based byte error correcting code [1], [2]. The encoded response symbo ls for different test vectors are compressed to a signature. The decod ing scheme of byte error correcting code is subsequently employed to d etect the faulty chips on the board. The CAA-based design for the faul t diagnosis strategy results in a simple and modular test structure th at is well suited for VLSI implementation. The scheme can be applied f or testing and diagnosis of multichip modules (MCMs) as well.