When designing a chip, it is not only essential that the model and prototype is functionally correct, it must also be possible to efficiently test the circuit for faults during production. In this field, our group is currently focusing on Built-in-Self-Test and detection of path delay faults.

Can you TEST the integrated circuit?

BEST PAPER AWARD AT EWDTS TO MANIKANDAN PALANICHAMY

Research Fellow Manikandan Palanichamy received the best regular paper award at the East - West Design & Test Symposium in September 2011. The prize was given for the paper ''A Programmable BIST with Macro and Micro codes for Embedded SRAMs'' with co-authors Bjørn B. Larsen, Einar J. Aas, and Areef Mohammad. Congratulations to all.

THE EUROPEAN TEST SYMPOSIUM (ETS) 2011 IN TRONDHEIM

ETS, the largest event in Europe that is entirely devoted to presenting and discussing trends, emerging results, hot topics, and practical applications in the area of electronic-based circuit and system testing, was held in Trondheim, Norway, on May 23-27, 2011.

Professor Einar Johan Aas acted as General Chair, while Erik Larsson, University of Linköping, was Program Chair. With the help of, among others, Associate Professor Bjørn B. Larsen and a number of our PhD-students, they organized this major event.

The technical program consisted of two plenary keynote addresses, “The Truths and Myths of Embedded Computing”, Shekhar Borkar, Intel Corporation, USA, and “From custom design to high volume design and manufacture – shift in major validation and test challenges”, Frank Berntsen, Nordic Semiconductor, Norway. Furthermore, the program included 42 technical paper presentations, 14 vendor presentations, four embedded tutorials, three poster sessions with 18 poster papers, three panels, a special session featuring a student contest, and student work-in-progress. The full program can be found at: http://www.iet.ntnu.no/workshop/ets2011/. All papers will be available through IEEE Xplore, and some papers will appear in JETTA.

Prior to ETS, Paolo Prinetto and Hans-Joachim Wunderlich organized the Test Spring School (TSS). TSS was held on May 20-23 with lectures from Shekhar Borkar, Peter Maxwell, Rob Aitken, Bernd Becker, Said Hamdioui, and Sybille Hellebrand.

And after ETS, Peter Harrod arranged the following three workshops on May 27-28; Dependability Issues in Deep-submicron Technologies (DDT), IEEE International Workshop on Processor Verification, Test and Debug (IWPVTD’11), 4th IEEE International Workshop on Impact of Low-Power design on Test and Reliability (LPonTR’11).

Altogether, ETS has expanded into a whole test week, with TSS and workshops at each end. The number of participants was approximately 200.