Staggered start of BIST controllers and BIST engines

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-8935586-B2
Application number	US-201213671605-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 8, 2012
Priority date	Nov 8, 2012
Publication date	Jan 13, 2015
Grant date	Jan 13, 2015

Abstract

Each register in each built-in self-test (BIST) controller contains a BIST controller-specific start count value that is different from at least one other BIST controller-specific start count. A test controller provides a start command simultaneously to all the BIST controllers. This causes each of the BIST controllers to simultaneously begin a countdown of the BIST controller-specific start count values, using a counter. Each of the BIST controllers starts a test procedure in a corresponding BIST domain when the countdown completes (in the corresponding BIST controller). Thus, the test procedure starts at different times in at least two of the BIST domains based on the difference of the BIST controller-specific start count values in the different registers. Further, during the test procedure, each stagger controller can stagger the start of each BIST engine within the corresponding BIST domain to which the stagger controller is connected.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An integrated circuit structure comprising:
a test controller;
built-in self-test (BIST) controllers operatively connected to said test controller; and
BIST engines operatively connected to said BIST controllers, said BIST engines being grouped into BIST domains, each BIST controller of said BIST controllers being connected to a single BIST domain of said BIST domains,
each said BIST controller comprising:
a register containing a BIST controller-speci…

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• Chickanosky Valarie H
• Gorman Kevin W
• Granato Suzanne
• Ouellette Michael R
• Pratt Nancy H
• Ziegerhofer Michael A

Classifications

• G01R31/31724 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic