Testing high-performance pipelined circuits with slow-speed testers

Abstract

This article presents a methodology for testing high-performance pipelined circuits with slow-speed testers. The technique uses a clock timing circuit to control data transfer in the pipeline in test mode. The technique adds no extra hardware in the data path of the pipeline and therefore has virtually no performance penalty. A clock timing circuit capable of achieving a timing resolution of 50 ps in 0.18 μm CMOS technology is presented. The design provides the ability to test the clock timing circuit itself. The effectiveness of the technique is demonstrated using a 16-bit pipelined multiplier as a test vehicle. Simulations show that we are able to detect delay faults as small as 50 ps at an input clock frequency of 100 MHz.