Reducing Test Application Time Through Test Data Mutation Encoding

In this paper we propose a new compression algorithmgeared to reduce the time needed to test scan-based designs.Our scheme ompresses the test vector set by encoding thebits that need to be flipped in the current test data slice inorder to obtain the mutated subsequent test data slice. Exploitation of the overlap in the encoded data by effectivetraversal search algorithms results in drastic overall compression.The technique we propose an be utilized as notonly a stand-alone technique but also an be utilized ontest data already compressed,extracting even further compression.The performance of the algorithm is mathematically analyzed and its merits experimentally confirmed onthe larger examples of the ISCAS '89 benchmark ircuits.