Testability Concepts for Digital ICs: The Macro Test Approach Frontiers in Electronic Testing

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the theory and practice of testing electronic products has changed considerably. Quality and testing have become inextricably linked and both are fundamental to the generation of revenue to a company, helping the company to remain profitable and therefore survive. Testing plays an important role in assessing the quality of a product.

The tester acts as a filter, separating good products from bad. Unfortunately, the tester can pass bad products and fail good products, and the generation of high quality tests has become complex and time consuming. To achieve significant reduction in time and cost of testing, the role and responsibility of testing has to be considered across an entire organization and product development process.

Testability Concepts for Digital ICs: The Macro Test Approach considers testability aspects for digital ICs. The strategy taken is to integrate the testability aspects into the design and manufacturing of ICs and, for each IC design project, to give a precise definition of the boundary conditions, responsibilities, interfaces and communications between persons, and quality targets.

Macro Test, a design-for-Testability approach, provides a manageable test program route. Using the Macro Test approach, one can explore alternative solutions to satisfy pre-defined levels of performance (e.g. defect detection, defect location, test application) within a pre-defined cost budget and time scale.

Testability Concepts for Digital ICs is the first book to present a tried and proven method of using a Macro approach to testing complex ICs and is of particular interest to all test engineers, IC designers and managers concerned with producing high quality ICs.