Testability Measures

Sivanantham S

Contents
Controllability and observability
SCOAP measures
Levelization Algorithm
Combinational circuit example
Sequential circuit example

How to test this circuit ??

How do we set the values a, b & z

Gates near to PI are easy to control compared to gates near to

PO
Gates near to PO are easy to observe compared to gates near to
PI
These issues leads us to the theory of controllability & observability

Controllability and
Observability

Controllability : Difficulty of setting internal circuit lines to 0

or 1 by setting primary circuit inputs
Observability : Difficulty of observing internal circuit lines
by observing primary outputs
Applications
Analysis of difficulty of testing internal circuit parts redesign or
add special test hardware
Guidance for algorithms computing test patterns avoid using
hard-to-control lines
Estimation of fault coverage
Estimation of test vector length

Testability analysis attributes

Involves circuit topology analysis, but no test vectors

It has linear complexity, otherwise it is pointless and one might
as well use automatic test pattern generation (ATPG) algorithms

SCOAP - Types of Measures

Sandia Controllability and Observability Analysis Program

Combinational measures
Roughly proportional to # circuit lines that must be set to control or
observe given line

Sequential measures
Roughly proportional to # times a flip-flop must be clocked to control or
observe given line

Combinational measures:
CC0 Difficulty of setting circuit line to logic 0
CC1 Difficulty of setting circuit line to logic 1
CO Difficulty of observing a circuit line

Sequential measures analogous:

SC0 ,

SC1, SO

RANGE

Controllabilities
infinity (hardest)

1 (easiest) to

Levelization algorithm
Label each gate with maximum no. of logic levels from

primary inputs (or maximum no. of levels from primary

outputs when computing observabilities)
Assign level no. 0 to all PIs
For each PI fan-out
Label that line with the PI level no.
Queue logic gate driven by that fan-out for evaluation

While queue is not empty

Dequeue next logic gate
If all gate inputs have level nos., label the gate with the

maximum of them + 1
Else, requeue the gate
Helps in deciding the path for performing SCOAP algorithm
for a given circuit

Controllability Calculations
For each logic gate that we traverse, we add 1 to the

controllability, accounting for the logic depth.

If a logic gate output is produced by setting only one
input to a controlling value, then:

If a logic gate output can only be produced by setting all

inputs to a non-controlling value, then:

SCOAP controllability
calculation

SCOAP observability
calculation