Procedures for static compaction of test sequences for synchronous sequential circuits based on vector restoration

We propose several compaction procedures for synchronous sequential circuits based on test vector restoration. Under a vector restoration procedure, all or most of the test vectors are first omitted from the test sequence. Test vectors are then restored one at a time or in subsequences only as necessary to restore the fault coverage of the original sequence. Techniques to speed-up the restoration process are investigated. These include limiting the test vectors initially omitted from the test sequence, consideration of several faults in parallel during restoration, and the use of a parallel fault simulator.