Behavioral-Level Test Development

An argument is made that the economics of test development in the LSI-VLSI era require creation and use of test development software aids that operate from high-level behavioral circuit models. Behavioral models are defined to be abstract specifications of the circuit function. Problems with the use of current-day gate-level software aids are discussed. Suggestions are given for implementing behavioral-level test generation tools. Recent work in this area at Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is discussed.