Testing Methods for Integrated Circuit Chips.

Provision for the functional testing of fabricated VLSI chips frequently involves as much design effort as the original chip design itself. Often the hardware requirements for testing involve a large expense. This research investigates the logical and functional requirements for chip testing. Available approaches are examined and their capabilities noted. Methods of communication between the test controller and the device under test are examined as well as logical structure of the test controller. Two candidate approaches are selected for comparison. 1 A standard general-purpose processor with standard bus interface serves as the test controller and 2 a custom VLSI test controller interfacing directly to the device under test. As a result, a test system architecture is proposed.