On the diagnosis of programmable interconnect systems: Theory and application

Abstract

This paper considers the diagnosis of field programmable interconnect systems (FPIS) in which programmable grids made of switches are included. For this type of interconnects, the number of times the grid must be programmed and the programming sequence of the switches an two of the most important figures of merit for full diagnosis (defection and location with no aliasing and confounding). A hierarchical approach to diagnosis is proposed and fully characterized. The application of this technique to commercially available FPIS such as FPGAs, is discussed. It is shown that the proposed diagnostic technique can be applied to the general purpose interconnect of the FPGAs in the 3000 family by Xilinx.