An exemplary method of detecting a Trojan circuit in an integrated circuit is related to applying a test pattern comprising an initial test pattern followed by a corresponding succeeding test pattern to a golden design of the integrated circuit, wherein a change in the test pattern increases side-channel sensitivity; measuring a side-channel parameter in the golden design of the integrated circuit after application of the test pattern; applying the test pattern to a design of the integrated circuit under test; measuring the side-channel parameter in the design of the integrated circuit under test after application of the test pattern; and determining a Trojan circuit to be present in the integrated circuit under test when the measured side-channel parameters vary by a threshold.

This disclosure describes a reduced pin bus that can be used on integrated circuits or embedded cores within integrated circuits. The bus may be used for serial access to circuits where the availability of pins on ICs or terminals on cores is limited. The bus may be used for a variety of serial communication operations such as, but not limited to, serial communication related test, emulation, debug, and/or trace operations of an IC or core design. Other aspects of the disclosure include the use of reduced pin buses for emulation, debug, and trace operations and for functional operations.

Method and apparatus to test an integrated circuit includes retrieving power distribution data relating to an integrated circuit and designating a segment that includes at least one component of the integrated circuit. A switching limit associated with the segment may be set based on the power distribution data. Processes further generate a testing pattern that includes the determined switching limit associated with the segment.

A computer executable tool analyzes a gate-level netlist and uses an analysis result for accelerating a timing-accurate gate-level logic simulation via a parallel processing. The analysis identifies the following elements in the gate-level netlist: (1) netlist wires at partition boundaries for a value propagation; (2) netlist wires whose activities should be suppressed for a better performance; and (3) upstream FFs for partition boundaries to reduce a synchronization overhead. This information is then used to improve a parallel simulation performance.

Disclosed herein are computer-implemented method, system, and computer-program product (non-transitory computer-readable storage medium) embodiments for automatic test-pattern generation (ATPG) validation. An embodiment includes parsing an ATPG input, semantically analyzing the ATPG input, generating a first HDL model based on the semantic analysis, creating an HDL testbench based on the first HDL model, simulating an ATE test of a circuit structure, and outputting a validation result of the circuit structure, based on the simulating. In some embodiments, the parsing may include lexical and/or syntactic analysis. The HDL model may represent the circuit structure as functionally equivalent to the ATPG input, as determined based on the semantic analysis. In some embodiments, the ATPG input includes a cycle-based test pattern for a first block of the ATPG input, and the HDL testbench includes event-based test patterns that mimic given ATE behavior. The HDL model may be smaller in size than the ATPG input.

A constraint solver utilizes a modified relaxation process to generate multiple different stimulus stream arrays that comply with multi-dimensional (e.g., 2D or 3D) constraints. First, an array is generated including rows and columns of randomly generated test vector values. During a first revision phase, the array is modified to comply with first-dimension constraints (e.g., selected test vector values are changed in non-compliant rows until every row complies with all row constraints). A second revision phase is then performed in multiple cycles, where each cycle includes identifying a current element having a greatest impact on non-compliance of the array on second-dimension (e.g., column and/or diagonal) constraints, and revising the current element's test vector value in a way that both minimizes the non-compliance, and also maintains compliance of the array with the first-dimension constraints. The second revision phase repeats until the array converges on a solution that complies with all multi-dimensional constraints.

Method and apparatus to test an integrated circuit includes retrieving power distribution data relating to an integrated circuit and designating a segment that includes at least one component of the integrated circuit. A switching limit associated with the segment may be set based on the power distribution data. Processes further generate a testing pattern that includes the determined switching limit associated with the segment.

A system for performing an automated test is disclosed. The method comprises receiving a plurality of work orders and a plurality of constraints for scheduling a plurality of tests on a plurality of DUTs using automated test equipment (ATE) available on a production floor, wherein the ATE comprises a plurality of test cells, and wherein each test cell comprises a plurality of testers and an automated handler. The method further comprises developing a test plan to execute the plurality of tests, wherein the test plan is customized in accordance with the information in the plurality of work orders and the plurality of constraints. Finally, the method comprises scheduling the plurality of tests to the plurality of test cells to maximize throughput of the plurality of DUTs.

Systems and methods are provided for generating test patterns. In various embodiments, systems and methods are provided in which machine learning is utilized to generate the test patterns in a manner so that the test patterns conform with design rule check (DRC) specified for a particular semiconductor manufacturing process or for particular types of devices. A test pattern generation system includes test pattern generation circuitry which receives a noise image. The test pattern generation generates a pattern image based on the noise image, and further generates a test pattern based on the pattern image. The test pattern is representative of geometric shapes of an electronic device design layout that is free of design rule check violations.

Information is received describing test response signals generated by scan cells of an integrated circuit and physical shift failures representing mismatches between the test response signals and expected test response signals of the integrated circuit. The test response signals are mapped to a subset of the scan cells associated with the physical shift failures. Fault simulation is performed for the mapped subset of the scan cells to identify physical faults located within the integrated circuit causing the physical shift failures.