Plug & Test at System Level via Testable TLM Primitives

With the evolution of Electronic System Level (ESL) design methodologies, we are experiencing an extensive use of Transaction-Level Modeling (TLM). TLM is a high-level approach to modeling digital systems where details of the communication among modules are separated from the those of the implementation of functional units. This paper represents a first step toward the automatic insertion of testing capabilities at the transaction level by definition of testable TLM primitives. The use of testable TLM primitives should help designers to easily get testable transaction level descriptions implementing what we call a "Plug & Test" design methodology. The proposed approach is intended to work both with hardware and software implementations. In particular, in this paper we will focus on the design of a testable FIFO communication channel to show how designers are given the freedom of trading-off complexity, testability levels, and cos

A design for testability study on a high performance automatic gain control circuit.

A comprehensive testability study on a commercial automatic gain control circuit is presented which aims to identify design for testability (DfT) modifications to both reduce production test cost and improve test quality. A fault simulation strategy based on layout extracted faults has been used to support the study. The paper proposes a number of DfT modifications at the layout, schematic and system levels together with testability. Guidelines that may well have generic applicability. Proposals for using the modifications to achieve partial self test are made and estimates of achieved fault coverage and quality levels presente

High resolution spectroscopic measurements of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide

A modified 1.83 meter Jarrell-Ash spectrometer is reported. The instrument was double passed and achieved a resolution of 0.05 cm at 15 micrometers. An integrating voltmeter was used to optimize the available integration time. Data were obtained in the 15 micrometer and 4.3 micrometer band of CO2 and the 4.6 micrometer and 2.3 micrometer bands of CO. The data are summarized and examples of typical spectra are given. All the data are stored on IBM cards

Testing Embedded Memories in Telecommunication Systems

Extensive system testing is mandatory nowadays to achieve high product quality. Telecommunication systems are particularly sensitive to such a requirement; to maintain market competitiveness, manufacturers need to combine reduced costs, shorter life cycles, advanced technologies, and high quality. Moreover, strict reliability constraints usually impose very low fault latencies and a high degree of fault detection for both permanent and transient faults. This article analyzes major problems related to testing complex telecommunication systems, with particular emphasis on their memory modules, often so critical from the reliability point of view. In particular, advanced BIST-based solutions are analyzed, and two significant industrial case studies presente

KAPow: A System Identification Approach to Online Per-Module Power Estimation in FPGA Designs

In a modern FPGA system-on-chip design, it is often insufficient to simply assess the total power consumption of the entire circuit by design-time estimation or runtime power rail measurement. Instead, to make better runtime decisions, it is desirable to understand the power consumed by each individual module in the system. In this work, we combine boardlevel power measurements with register-level activity counting to build an online model that produces a breakdown of power consumption within the design. Online model refinement avoids the need for a time-consuming characterisation stage and also allows the model to track long-term changes to operating conditions. Our flow is named KAPow, a (loose) acronym for ‘K’ounting Activity for Power estimation, which we show to be accurate, with per-module power estimates as close to ±5mW of true measurements, and to have low overheads. We also demonstrate an application example in which a permodule power breakdown can be used to determine an efficient mapping of tasks to modules and reduce system-wide power consumption by over 8%

A 20 GHz bright sample for {\delta} > +72{\deg}: I. Catalogue

During 2010-2011, the Medicina 32-m dish hosted the 7-feed 18-26.5 GHz receiver built for the Sardinia Radio Telescope, with the goal to perform its commissioning. This opportunity was exploited to carry out a pilot survey at 20 GHz over the area for {\delta} > + 72.3{\deg}. This paper describes all the phases of the observations, as they were performed using new hardware and software facilities. The map-making and source extraction procedures are illustrated. A customised data reduction tool was used during the follow-up phase, which produced a list of 73 confirmed sources down to a flux density of 115 mJy. The resulting catalogue, here presented, is complete above 200 mJy. Source counts are in agreement with those provided by the AT20G survey. This pilot activity paves the way to a larger project, the K-band Northern Wide Survey (KNoWS), whose final aim is to survey the whole Northern Hemisphere down to a flux limit of 50 mJy (5{\sigma}).Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures. Accepted by MNRA