Nvidia Corporation

Kaushik Narayanun

Shantanu Sarangi

Karthikeyan Natarajan

Sandeep Gangundi

Manjunatha Gowda

Harbinder Sikka

Lijuan Luo

Mahmut Yilmaz

Jae Wu

Techniques to improve the accuracy and speed for detection and remediation of difficult to test nodes in a circuit design netlist. The techniques utilize improved netlist representations, test point insertion, and trained neural networks.

Deep learning based identification of difficult to test nodes

The disclosure provides using test processors to provide a more flexible solution compared to the existing DFX blocks that are used for controlling test networks in chips. The test processors provide a highly flexible solution since programming of the test processors can be changed at any time; even after manufacturing, and can support practically an unlimited number of core chips in any configuration. The high flexibility provided via the test processors can reduce engineering effort needed in design and verification, accelerate schedules, and may prevent additional tapeouts in case of DFX design bugs. By making debug and diagnosis easier by providing an opportunity to change debug behavior as needed, the time-to-market timeline can be accelerated. Accordingly, the disclosure provides a chip with a test processor, a multi-chip processing system with a test processor, and a method of designing a chip having a test processor.

Controlling test networks of chips using integrated processors

A hardware controller of a device under test (DUT) communicates with a PCIe controller to fetch test data and control test execution. The hardware controller also communicates with a JTAG/IEEE 1500 component to set up the DUT into various test configurations and to trigger test execution. For SCAN tests, the hardware controller provides a high throughput direct access to the on-chip compressors/decompressors to load the scan data and to collect the test results.

Method and apparatus to access high volume test data over high speed interfaces

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Santa Clara, CA, United States of America

Kaushik Narayanun