System and method for performing a failure assessment of an integrated circuit

Abstract

A system for performing a failure assessment of an IC may comprise a hardware subsystem and a control subsystem to control operations performed by the hardware subsystem. The hardware system may change a duration of cycles of a clocking signal on the IC, and stop the clocking signal at a selected clock cycle. The operations may comprise changing the duration of selected clock cycles across a block of clock cycles, and performing a binary search across the block of clock cycles, such that the selected clock cycles are temporally placed at selected different locations within the block of clock cycles. At each iteration of the binary search, the system determines when a failure occurs. When the binary search indicates a single clock cycle causing a failure, the system stops clocking transitions at the single clock cycle, and the system extracts data from one or more circuit components of the IC.