March U

Abstract

Short and efficient memory tests is the goal of every test designer. To reduce the cost of production tests, often a simple test which covers most of the faults, e.g. all simple (unlinked) faults, is desirable to eliminate most defective parts; a more costly test can be used thereafter to eliminate the remainder of the bad parts. Such a test-cost efficient approach is used by most manufacturers. In addition, system power-on tests are not allowed a long test time while a high fault coverage is desirable. The authors propose a new realistic fault model (the disturb fault model), and a set of tests for unlinked faults. These tests have the property of covering all simple (unlinked) faults at a very reasonable test time compared with existing tests.