A Novel RTL ATPG Model Based on Gate Inherent Faults (GIF-PO) of Complex Gates

This paper starts with a comprehensive survey on RTL ATPG. It then proposes a novel RTL ATPG model based on ”Gate Inherent Faults” (GIF). These GIF are extracted from each complex gate (adder, case-statement, etc.) of the RTL source code individually. They are related to the internal logic paths of a complex gate. They are not related to any net/signal in the RTL design. It is observed, that when all GIF on RTL are covered (100%) and the same stimulus is applied, then all gate level stuck-at faults of the netlist are covered (100%) as well. The proposed RTL ATPG model is therefore synthesis independent. This is shown on ITC’99 testcases. The applied semi-automatic test pattern generation process is based on functional simulation.