On selecting flip-flops for partial reset

Partial reset is an inexpensive design for test technique in which an additional primary input is connected to the reset or the set inputs of a subset of flip-flops (FFs). In this paper, we present a new method to select the FFs to be initialized and their initial values. The FFs are selected based on their contribution to the testability of the circuit. A sensitivity analysis is done to determine the ranking of FFs. The results obtained by the new method show that our selection of FFs gives consistently better fault coverage than the previously used one.<<ETX>>

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