Detectability of spurious signals with limited propagation in combinational circuits

The continuous reduction in scale achieved in microelectronic technology and the increasing switching speed may cause parasitic or spurious signals to appear, due to crosstalk. In this work, scale reduction of interconnections is analyzed, showing the increasing mutual capacitance and a model of crosstalk considering parasitic capacitive coupling is shown. A method for studying the propagation limits of crosstalk signals has been developed for combinational circuits. An algorithm for crosstalk faults test pattern generation is proposed taking into account the propagation limitation of the signals. Results of the implementation of the algorithm are shown, putting into evidence the dependency of the detectability of spurious signals on their propagation limits.<>