Partial reset and scan for flip-flops based on states requirement for test generation

Abstract

This paper proposes a method to select flip-flops for partial reset and/or partial scan for sequential circuits to increase their testability. The method gives weights for flip-flops for consideration for partial reset and/or scan based on information on required states for activating faults and the number of faults which propagate to flip-flops, which are obtained during test generation. Since the above information offers the reasons causing the untestable and/or hard-to-detect faults, the method is very efficient in locating flip-flops for partial reset and/or scan to ease test generation task. Experiments showed that this method selected less number of flip-flops for partial reset and scan while produced more testable circuits for benchmark circuits.