An implementation of domain specific languages to microprocessor's Memory Built in Self Repair testing

Abstract

Memory Built in Self Repair (MBISR) test in microprocessor testing has always been a very challenging. The main challenges are the complexity of the memory structure and the device to device design variations. Because of this complexity, separate groups with different focus are needed to address the challenge. The test engineers are the experts on Automated Test Equipment (ATE) platforms, while the IP owners are the experts on particular microprocessor's IP. To minimize the test program development and maintenance costs, the test engineers aim to provide a generic solution for all devices. Therefore, to cater for the variations, XML (Extensible Markup Language) has been used to represent the product specific definitions and configurations which will be maintained by the IP owners. However, the surge of new microprocessor designs and more advance innovation to the memory IPs lead to device to device variations increase. In the other hand XML is too static to handle these variations increase and has limited capability to express higher-order structures like conditionals. Therefore a domain specific language (DSL) is adapted to effectively deal with this issue. DSL as opposed to XML is a programming language which provides flexibility as offered by the general purpose languages, such as Java and C++. Yet, it is targeted to a particular kind of problem with its purpose of having separation of business and technical aspect, making it concise and easy to understand by the domain specialists. Therefore DSL fits perfectly as an easy to use language for the IP owners to express freely the product specifications. This paper showcases an example of DSL based solution to MBISR testing in microprocessor.