The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.

The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.

Date of Patent:
Mar. 19, 2002

Filed:

Dec. 31, 1998
Applicant:
Inventors:

Ajay Khoche, Sunnyvale, CA (US);

Timothy Ayres, Milpitas, CA (US);

Assignee:

Synopsys, Inc., Mountain View, CA (US);

Attorney:
Primary Examiner:
Assistant Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
G01R 3/128 ;
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
G01R 3/128 ;
Abstract

In a multiport memory semiconductor integrated circuit, an efficient method of testing the memory for faults. The method determines a base address in a multiport memory. A plurality of addresses are scanned within the memory which are at a hamming distance of 1 from the base address, such that at least two memory cells in each column of the multiport memory device are accessed in the scan. This allows the detection of cross port faults, address mismatch faults, and bit shorts due to the fact that the faults are exposed when the two memory cells sharing access columns are accessed with test data. The method functions nominally without requiring any detailed information about the placement and routing structure of the multiport memory device.


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