Introducing redundant computations in RTL data paths for reducing BIST resources

The need for considering BIST requirements during the scheduling and assign ment stages of behavioral synthesis has been demonstrated in previous resea rch and techniques for reducing BIST resources of a data path during these stages of synthesis have been developed. However, the degree of freedom tha t can be exploited during scheduling and assignment to minimize these resou rces is often limited by the data and control dependencies of a behavior. I n this paper, we propose transformation of a behavior before scheduling and assignment, namely introducing redundant computations, such that the resul ting data path is testable using few BIST resources. The transformation mak es use of spare capacity of modules to add redundancy that enables test pat hs to be shared among the modules. A technique for identifying potential BI ST resource sharing problems in a behavior and resolving them by redundant computation is presented. Introduction of redundant computations is perform ed without compromising the latency and functional resource requirement of the behavior.