An Enhanced Technique for the Automatic Generation of Effective Diagnosis-oriented Test Programs for Processor

The ever increasing usage of microprocessor devices is sustained by a high volume production that in turn requires a high production yield, backed by a controlled process. Fault diagnosis is an integral part of the industrial effort towards these goals. This paper presents a new methodology that significantly improves over a previous work. The goal is construction of cost-effective programs sets for software-based diagnosis of microprocessors. The methodology exploits existing post-production test sets, designed for software-based self-test, and may use an already developed infrastructure IP to perform the diagnosis. Experimental results are reported in the paper comparing the new results with existing ones, and showing the effectiveness of the new approach for an Intel i8051 processor core. 1