Practical considerations in benchmarking digital testing systems

Abstract

It is noted that there are minimum requirements benchmark circuits have to satisfy in order to be useful in evaluating digital testing systems (DTSs). The circuits need to have a profile that enables the testing to be done in an efficient way. The circuits also need to include commonly used constructs such as bidirectional pins or asynchronous signals. Also, the correctness of different versions of the same circuit needs to be verified in order to make a fair comparison of the different DTSs. The author aims to determine the features that have to be known about the benchmark circuits before using them to evaluate DTSs, to distinguish between the requirements for combinational and sequential circuits, and to show the merit of using a neutral hardware description language to facilitate the transport of the circuits between DTSs.<>