Defect Detection Differences between Launch-Off-Shift and Launch-Off-Capture in Sense-Amplifier-Based Flip-Flop Testing

About half of the logic circuit transistors of a modern integrated circuit design reside inside the scan flip-flops [1]. Even though prior work analyzed detection of defects in traditional master-slave flip-flop circuits, to the best of our knowledge, this work is the first one regarding detection of defects in a sense-amplifier-based flip-flop, which is a preferred design style in some high-speed low-power designs. In this work, we uncover a class of resistive open and resistive short defects in such a flip-flop design, which show a great difference in their detection response to launch-off-shift versus launch-off-capture due to their sensitivity to clock-gating and data input transitions.

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