DFT Digest

Well, ITC was 2 weeks ago, but as a as a blogger, I’m still getting some mileage out of it. It took some time to get feedback from the various friends, and well, I have a day job that sometimes extends beyond daytime. Anyway, I’ve a feeling it’ll normal to write about ITC for two weeks before, and two weeks after. There’s a lot going on this time of year.

One of my acquaintances that was kind enough to send me his thoughts about his ITC week is Dr. Mohammad Tehranipoor of the University of Connecticut. Dr. Tehranipoor was Program Chair for the Workshop on Current- and Defect-Based Testing. He also gave a presentation at the Magma corporate event. You can see a list of his scheduled events at his website.

Here’s what Mohammad said about his ITC experience - first, on the Magma luncheon:

My talk at Magma’s luncheon event focused on “At-speed Test Challenges in Nanometer Technology Designs”. I think traditional ATPGs with no understanding of physical layout, timing, power, noise and variation will not provide high quality test patterns and I believe we will see more EDA companies going into this direction. The event was well attended.

I guess my take is maybe it will catch on. Depends on if it can be made efficient.  The benefits are clear, the costs however… He also comments on the Monday panel on at-speed scan test:

The panel on Monday was good. There was a lot of good discussions on whether the at-speed scan is reality or fantasy. Most panelists and majority of audience agreed that at-speed scan is becoming a reality. The LSI position is this regards however was more interesting as “at-speed scan test is the way out”.

Then there were the technical sessions:

There were good papers in various technical sessions. California Scan Architecture certainly was one of them. After Illinois Scan Architecture and California Scan Architecture, we should expect to see Texas or New York or may be Connecticut scan architecture soon

Every state is vying for the next scan architecture. I’m voting on Connecticut. Dr. Tehranipoor and his crew is doing some interesting work out there.

The DBT workshop was probably the most strong one in the history of this workshop according to people who attended DBT for years. It was very well attended. The keynote speakers were outstanding. The panel was excellent. The papers were of high quality. Hopefully we’ll do the same again next year.

Hopefully next year, I’ll be there too! I’d like to thank Mohammad and my other friends who provided their ITC insights over the last few weeks. There’s still more topics to be written about, but I’ll be writing about theem on a subject by subject basis, rather than in the context of International Test Week.

Cheers…