Multi-Layer Test and Diagnosis for Dependable NoCs

Abstract

Networks-on-chip are inherently fault tolerant or at least gracefully degradable as both, connectivity and amount of resources, provide some useful redundancy. These properties can only be exploited extensively if test and diagnosis techniques support fault detection and error containment in an optimized way. On the one hand, all faulty components have to be isolated, and on the other hand, remaining fault-free functionalities have to be kept operational. In this contribution, behavioral end-to-end error detection is considered together with functional test methods for switches and gate level diagnosis to locate and to isolate faults in the network in an efficient way with low time overhead.