Non-intrusive BIST for systems-on-a-chip

The term "functional BIST" describes a test method to control functional modules so that they generate a deterministic test set, which targets structural faults within other parts of the system. It is a promising solution for self-testing complex digital systems at reduced costs in terms of area overhead and performance degradation. While previous work mainly investigated the use of functional modules for generating pseudo-random and pseudo-exhaustive test patterns, the present paper shows that a variety of modules can also be used as a deterministic test pattern generator via an appropriate reseeding strategy. This method enables a BIST technique that does not introduce additional hardware like test points and test registers into combinational and pipelined modules under test. The experimental results prove that the reseeding method works for accumulator based structures, multipliers, or encryption modules as efficiently as for the classic linear feedback shift registers, and some times even better.