Delay fault simulation with bounded gate delay mode

Previously reported work on path and gate delay tests fail to analyze path reconvergences when a bounded gate delay model is used. While robust path delay tests are of the highest quality, most path faults are only testable nonrobustly. Many non-robust tests are usually found but, in practice, are easily invalidated by hazards. The invalidation of non-robust tests occurs primarily due to non-zero delays of off-path circuit elements that may reconverge. Thus, non-robust tests are of limited value when process variations cause gate delays to vary. For gate delay faults, failure to recognize the correlations among the ambiguity waveforms at inputs of reconvergent gates cause fault coverages to be optimistic. This paper enhances a recently published ambiguity simulation algorithm [5] to accurately measure both non-robust path and gate delay coverages for the bounded delay model. Experimental results for the ISCAS circuits show accurate results are often 20-30% less than the optimistic ones that fail to analyze signal reconvergences.

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