Interactive Educational Tool for Memory Testing

Memories are one of the most important components in digital systems like SoCs. The high density of their cell array makes memories extremely vulnerable to physical defects. Hence, memory testing and Design-for-Test became one of the crucial tasks in the design of complex and heterogeneous SoCs. Politecnico di Torino and the Institute of Informatics have a wide experience in the field of RAM testing (i.e., automatic march test generation, fault simulators, memory BIST generators etc.). This work is a tentative to put the joint experience of our research groups in developing an interactive educational tool for the students that should introduce standard and well-known methods of memory testing based on BIST. The MemBIST Java Applet and the March Test Generator were two individual tools designed and implemented at the two mentioned institutions. They were merged into one tool in order to facilitate its usage also by the professional

Interactive Educational Tool for Memory Testing

Memories are one of the most important components in digital systems like SoCs. The high density of their cell array makes memories extremely vulnerable to physical defects. Hence, memory testing and Design-for-Test became one of the crucial tasks in the design of complex and heterogeneous SoCs. Politecnico di Torino and the Institute of Informatics have a wide experience in the field of RAM testing (i.e., automatic march test generation, fault simulators, memory BIST generators etc.). This work is a tentative to put the joint experience of our research groups in developing an interactive educational tool for the students that should introduce standard and well-known methods of memory testing based on BIST. The MemBIST Java Applet and the March Test Generator were two individual tools designed and implemented at the two mentioned institutions. They were merged into one tool in order to facilitate its usage also by the professionals

Tetrapyrrole Metabolism in Arabidopsis thaliana

Higher plants produce four classes of tetrapyrroles, namely, chlorophyll (Chl), heme, siroheme, and phytochromobilin. In plants, tetrapyrroles play essential roles in a wide range of biological activities including photosynthesis, respiration and the assimilation of nitrogen/sulfur. All four classes of tetrapyrroles are derived from a common biosynthetic pathway that resides in the plastid. In this article, we present an overview of tetrapyrrole metabolism in Arabidopsis and other higher plants, and we describe all identified enzymatic steps involved in this metabolism. We also summarize recent findings on Chl biosynthesis and Chl breakdown. Recent advances in this field, in particular those on the genetic and biochemical analyses of novel enzymes, prompted us to redraw the tetrapyrrole metabolic pathways. In addition, we also summarize our current understanding on the regulatory mechanisms governing tetrapyrrole metabolism. The interactions of tetrapyrrole biosynthesis and other cellular processes including the plastid-to-nucleus signal transduction are discussed