Design for Testability Method to Avoid Error Masking of Software-Based Self-Test for Processors

In this paper, we propose a design for testability method for test programs of software-based self-test using test program templates. Software-based self-test using templates has a problem of error masking where some faults detected in a test generation for a module are not detected by the test program synthesized from the test. The proposed method achieves 100% template level fault efficiency, that is, it completely avoids the error masking. Moreover, the proposed method has no performance degradation (adds only observation points) and enables at-speed testing. key words: software-based self-test, processor, test program template, design for testability, error masking, at-speed testing