City Research Online

Abstract

The automation of the design of digital system is discussed with particular reference to production testing and the maintenance of system operational integrity. The need for techniques to diagnose intermittent faults is identified.

The project is divided into three phases: investigation of the use of ordinary solid fault testing techniques for diagnosing intermittent faults; development of a new technique for constructing schedules specifically for diagnosing intermittent faults; and evaluation of the various schedules to determine and compare operational effectiveness under intermittent fault conditions.

Implementation of the various diagnostic schedule construction procedures for solid and intermittent faults is performed using computer programmed simulation routines. The table look-up and the table-driven simulation techniques are selected for this. The Fault-Matrix is used in the procedure for selecting tests for combinational circuits. The test selection procedure for sequential circuits is based on the Sequential Analyser. The types of fault, the form of fault intermittency and the class of circuit considered are limited and restricted to ease implementation problems.

The schedule evaluation is performed by simulation experiments using a two-state first-order Markov model of fault intermittency and a random number generator routine. Results from the evaluation show that the schedule designed specifically for diagnosing intermittent faults is the most effective in practice.

Publication Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Subjects:	Q Science > QC Physics
Departments:	School of Science & Technology > School of Science & Technology Doctoral Theses Doctoral Theses

Export

Downloads