Exact Critical Path Tracing Fault Simulation Based on Reconvergent Fanout Stem Analysis

This paper presents a fault simulation method of exact critical path tracing based on reconvergent fanout stem analysis,although the basic concept is similar to that of the critical path tracing method which traces sensitive input ba ckward to directly determine the fault detectability.The method in the paper is a multiple fault propagation method which considers. propagation of all possible single stuck-at faults between a, gate output and-input,(which is more efficient than' FIT; Also reconvergent fanaut stems are analyzed and four ty.pe reconvergent stems are defined, which makes,it ppssible; to greatly reduce reconvergent fanout stem analysis. The simulation algorithm -is descri-bed. and the results are shown for the well-known benchmark circuits.