Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Yoichiro Mae

Hisato Yoshida

Kimihiko Aiba

For detecting a failure of a logic circuitprovided in a semiconductor integrated circuit due to deterioration with age, or the like, there is provided a reference-producing circuitusing a logic different from the logic of the logic circuit. The reference-producing circuitproduces an abnormal/normal determination reference S for a predetermined output signal out output from the logic circuit. The reference-producing circuitis made from only a portion of the logic of the logic circuitor with a logic totally different from the logic of the logic circuitto produce the determination reference S, so that the circuit scale of the reference-producing circuitis smaller than that of the logic circuit. The determination reference S from the reference-producing circuitand the output signal out from the logic circuitare compared with each other by a determination circuit

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Osaka, Japan

Yoichiro Mae