Automatic Test Pattern Generation
ATPG (acronym for both Automatic Test Pattern Generation and Automatic Test Pattern Generator) is an electronic design automation method/technology used to find an input (or test) sequence that, when applied to a digital circuit, enables automatic test equipment to distinguish between the correct circuit behavior and the faulty circuit behavior caused by defects. The generated patterns are used to test semiconductor devices after manufacture, and in some cases to assist with determining the cause of failure (failure analysis.) The effectiveness of ATPG is measured by the amount of modeled defects, or fault models, that are detected and the number of generated patterns. These metrics generally indicate test quality (higher with more fault detections) and test application time (higher with more patterns). ATPG efficiency is another important consideration. It is influenced by the fault model under consideration, the type of circuit under test (full scan, synchronous sequential, or asynchronous sequential), the level of abstraction used to represent the circuit under test (gate, register-transistor, switch), and the required test quality.
Read more about Automatic Test Pattern Generation: Basics of ATPG, The Stuck-at Fault Model, Combinational ATPG, Sequential ATPG, ATPG and Nanometer Technologies, Algorithmic Methods, Relevant Conferences
Famous quotes containing the words automatic, test, pattern and/or generation:
“The ruin of the human heart is self-interest, which the American merchant calls self-service. We have become a self- service populace, and all our specious comforts—the automatic elevator, the escalator, the cafeteria—are depriving us of volition and moral and physical energy.”
—Edward Dahlberg (1900–1977)
“There is a parallel between the twos and the tens. Tens are trying to test their abilities again, sizing up and experimenting to discover how to fit in. They don’t mean everything they do and say. They are just testing. . . . Take a good deal of your daughter’s behavior with a grain of salt. Try to handle the really outrageous as matter-of-factly as you would a mistake in grammar or spelling.”
—Stella Chess (20th century)
“His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly’s wings. At one time he understood it no more than the butterfly did and he did not know when it was brushed or marred. Later he became conscious of his damaged wings and of their construction and he learned to think and could not fly any more because the love of flight was gone and he could only remember when it had been effortless.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“A generation which has passed through the shop has absorbed standards and ambitions which are not of those of spaciousness, and cannot get away from them. Everything with them is done as though for sale, and they naturally have in view the greatest possible benefit, profit and that end of the stuff that will make the best show.”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)