International Business Machines Corporation

James S Allen

Kenneth D Wagner

Theresa L Meyer

A method of accurately simulating how design defects and faults are detected in the board design and manufacturing test environments is provided which uses statements in the simulation control language of a fault simulator. The simulation of the operation of electronic boards (which may not yet have been built) in their expected test environments is possible. The set of statements used in the simulation language allows the proposed functional self-test code, also called diagnostic code or power-on self-test code, which is to be executed by a (micro-)processor, to be tested for its effectiveness. The simulation must synchronize the simulated execution of the processor code to be evaluated with the fault detection by the code being evaluated, simulate the use of any attached tester, such as a logic analyzer, and provide data that can be used for programming devices in the test environment. The PROBE statements in the simulation language determine when the simulator starts and ends a measurement window during which faults can be detected by the simulator. These statements can be used to simulate the amount of time a net must remain stable for test equipment to capture its value.

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Friendswood, TX, United States of America

James S Allen