GOLDENGATE: a fast and accurate bridging fault simulator under a hybrid logic/I/sub DDQ/ testing environment

Abstract

In this paper we describe GOLDENGATE-a bridging fault simulator for cell-based digital VLSI circuits with the following features: 1. It targets both combinational and sequential circuits. 2. It simulates general (routing, adjacency, and intra-cell) realistic bridging faults efficiently through a table-based scheme. The pre-computed table contains accurate cell output voltage and I/sub DDQ/ values obtained through electrical-level simulations. 3. It simulates both feedback and nonfeedback bridging faults (BFs) efficiently through a cycling event-driven technique. 4. It allows mixed voltage and I/sub DDQ/ simulation to support a fully hybrid test scheme where mixed logic and I/sub DDQ/ sensings are allowed. The experimental results show that GOLDENGATE is both accurate and fast.