Qualcomm Incorporated

Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation

Clint Wayne Mumford

Thomas Philip Speier

Kshitiz Saxena

Anand Krishnamurthy

James Norris Dieffenderfer

Miguel Comparan

Manish Garg

Michael ThaiThanh Phan

Kevin Neal Magill

Sanjay Bhikhubhai Patel

Jason Lawrence Panavich

Ravi Rajagopalan

Ketan Vitthal Patel

Lakshmikant Mamileti

Oscar Rosell

Adam Muff

Viren Ramesh Patel

Paul Steinmetz

Ring packet built-in self-test (PBIST) circuitry configured to detect errors in wires connecting a ring of superconducting chips includes circuitry configured to make the PBIST immune to interchip latency and still allow the PBIST to test a stop-to-stop connection. By making a PBIST independent of latency, an entire ring can be characterized for latency and for its bit-error rate prior to running any functional test. Such systems and associated methods can be scaled to larger platforms having any number of ring stops. The PBIST circuitry can function as either transmitter or receiver, or both, to test an entire ring. The PBIST can also be used to tune clocks in the ring to achieve the lowest overall bit error rate (BER) in the ring.

Test and characterization of ring in superconducting domain through built-in self-test

Providing efficient handling of memory array failures in processor-based systems is disclosed. In this regard, in one aspect, a memory controller of a processor-based device is configured to detect a defect within a memory element of a plurality of memory elements of a memory array. In response, a disable register of one or more disable registers is set to correspond to the memory element to indicate that the memory element is disabled. The memory controller receives a memory access request to a memory address corresponding to the memory element, and determines, based on one or more disable registers, whether the memory element is disabled. If so, the memory controller disallows the memory access request. Some aspects may provide that the memory controller, in response to detecting the defect, provides a failure indication to an executing process, and subsequently receives, from the executing process, a request to set the disable register.

Providing efficient handling of memory array failures in processor-based systems

The content and order of a predetermined sequence of hard-coded and/or quasi-programmable test patterns may be altered during a Built-In Self-Test (BIST) routine. As such, knowledge gained post design completion may be reflected in the selection and arrangement of available tests to be executed during a BIST routine. In one embodiment, a sequence of hard-coded and/or quasi-programmable tests is executed during a BIST routine by receiving test ordering information for the sequence of tests and executing the sequence of tests in an order indicated by the test ordering information. A corresponding BIST circuit comprises a storage element and a state machine. The storage element is configured to store test ordering information for the sequence of tests. The state machine is configured to execute the sequence of tests in an order indicated by the test ordering information.

Method and apparatus for scheduling BIST routines

Read and write data steering logic in the I/O of a memory array is tested by providing a data bus lane for each addressable subunit of a memory array storage location. Each bus lane is connected to the data input of a comparator. A BIST controller writes test patterns to the memory through the write steering logic and reads the test patterns in parallel to test the write steering logic. The BIST controller writes test patterns to the memory in parallel and reads the test patterns through the read steering logic to test the read steering logic. In both cases, a separate comparator dedicated to each bus lane verifies that the subunit data was properly shifted between the data bus lane and memory storage location subunit. The comparators are effectively disabled during normal operations to prevent logic gate switching.

Method and apparatus for testing data steering logic for data storage having independently addressable subunits

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Apex, NC, United States of America

Clint Wayne Mumford