International Business Machines Corporation

Cadence Design Systems, Inc.

Leonard O Farnsworth, Iii

Michael Richard Ouellette

Tad Jeffrey Wilder

Carl Frederick Barnhart

Michael Z Felske

Benjamin P Lynch

Pamela Sue Gillis

Thomas St Pierre

Donald Lawrence Wheater

Brion L Keller

Bernd K Koenemann

Frank O Distler

Andrew Ferko

Thomas StPierre

Pamela S Gillia

An integrated circuit and method of testing and repairing the integrated circuit. The integrated circuit includes: a multiplicity of macro-circuits having the same function; a fuse bank, the state of the fuses storing test data indicating at least which macro-circuits failed a test; and means for preventing utilization of failing macro-circuits during operation of the integrated circuit and a method generating a partial good integrated circuit, the method including: providing an integrated circuit have a multiplicity of macro-circuits arranged in one or more groups, each macro-circuit having the same function and a fuse bank containing fuses; testing each macro-circuit prior to a fuse programming operation; programming the fuses in the fuse bank in order to store data indicating at least which macro-circuits failed the testing step; and preventing utilization of each failing macro-circuit during operation of the integrated based on the data stored in the fuse bank.

Partial good integrated circuit and method of testing same

An integrated circuit, including: a multiplicity of macro-circuits, each macro-circuit having the same function; a fuse bank containing a multiplicity of fuses, the state of the fuses storing test data indicating at least which macro-circuits failed a test; and means for preventing utilization of failing macro-circuits during operation of the integrated circuit and a method generating a partial good integrated circuit, the method including: providing an integrated circuit have a multiplicity of macro-circuits arranged in one or more groups, each macro-circuit having the same function and a fuse bank containing fuses; testing each macro-circuit prior to a fuse programming operation; programming the fuses in the fuse bank in order to store data indicating at least which macro-circuits failed the testing step; and preventing utilization of each failing macro-circuit during operation of the integrated based on the data stored in the fuse bank.

A method and system for reducing test data volume in the testing of logic products such as integrated circuit chips. Test data loaded by a tester into the logic product to apply to portions of combinational logic circuitry therein in order to detect faults comprises 'care' bits and 'non-care' bits. The care bits target focal faults of interest in the logic circuitry being tested while the non-care bits do not. According to the invention, non-care bits in the test vector data are filled with repetitive background data to provide for a high degree of compressibility of the test vector data. A substantial portion of the care bits may also be set to a repetitive value and the original values later recovered.

Method and system for reducing test data volume in the testing of logic products

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Lincoln, VT, United States of America

Leonard O Farnsworth, Iii