Which Set of Bridging Faults Should Test Compilers Target ? 1

Existing test compilers target stuck-at faults. Recent experimental evidence suggest targetting bridging faults (BF) because they model between 40-50% of physical defects. For BFs, one suggestion has been to extract a small set of BFs using \layout analysis". We argue that this is not a feasible option for test compilers thereby making a case for \layout independent analysis" of BFs. Opting for \layout independent analysis" implies that computer-aided test tools target \all possible BFs". Targetting such a large number of faults is generally considered unreasonable. We present new experimental data and analyze published data. The analysis reveal that for many problems very good techniques have already been developed to target such a large number of faults.