A Maximal Resolution Guided-Probe Testing Algorithm

Abstract

The existing guided-probe testing procedures employ a simple strategy of following error path(s). This strategy may fail to locate faults (or may produce a wrong diagnostic) in the following situations: 1. Faults affecting lines connected to buses or wired-or junctions. 2. Faults whose error paths form closed asynchronous loops. 3. Faults which generate pseudo-intermittent symptoms. 4. Faults which do not propagate errors to the probed points. In this paper we introduce a new guided-probe algorithm which overcomes these difficulties. Our algorithm always achieves the maximal diagnostic resolution obtainable under the applied test.