Position Statement: Testing in a VLSI Design Course

I’ve believed for a long time that testing concepts are important to VLSI design. That’s why I included testing concepts in my book Modern VLSI Design [Wol98]. In our VLSI course at Princeton, I try to cover testing concepts at each level of the design hierarchy: basic stuck-at fault models and combinational test generation when we talk about combinational logic; sequential test generation when we talk about sequential logic; and highlevel design-for-testability when we discuss architecture design. I stress that testability is important and that it must be designed into the chip. I think that giving them some understanding of test fundamentals helps them understand both the importance of testing and some basic techniques for designing testable chips that they can apply when they go to industry.