Soft Core Embedded Processor Based Built-In Self-Test of FPGAs

Abstract

This paper presents the first implementation of Built-In Self-Test (BIST) of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) using a soft core embedded processor for reconfiguration of the FPGA resources under test, control of BIST execution, retrieval of BIST results, and fault diagnosis. The approach was implemented in Xilinx Virtex-5 FPGAs but is applicable to any FPGA that contains an internal configuration memory access port.