Report Number: CSL-TR-83-242
Institution: Stanford University, Computer Systems Laboratory
Title: Fault simulation using ADLIB-SABLE
Author: Ghosh, Sumit
Author: vanCleemput, Willem
Date: March 1983
Abstract: This technical report presents work in the area of deductive fault simulation. This technique, one of the three fault simulation techniques discussed in the literature, has been implemented in ADLIB-SABLE, a hierarchical multi-level simulator designed and used at Stanford University. Most of the fault models illustrated in this report consider only two fault types: single stuck-at-0 and single stuck-at-Z (high impedance). Gate level fault models have been built for most commonly used gates. The ability to model the fault behavior of functional blocks in ADLIB-SABLE is also demonstrated. The motivation is that for many functional blocks, a gate level description may not be available or that the designer wishes to sacrifice detailed analysis for a higher simulation speed. Functional fault models are built for many commonly used blocks, using a decomposition technique. The ratio of functional fault simulation speed to gate level fault simulation speed has been observed to be of the order of 5 for the typical functional block sizes considered. The ratio however, is not the upper limit and will be larger for larger-sized functional blocks. It was also proved that the functional fault models are invariant with respect to the internal implementation details. A design discipline for sequential circuits is worked out which allows deductive fault simulation. Extensions to the simple (0,1) deductive techniques are studied and the fault models built in the extended domain are observed to be useful in modelling gates of some technologies. A comparison between deductive and concurrent fault simulation methods is given. Performance of deductive fault simulation, implemented in ADLIB-SABLE, shows that for sequential as well as combinational circuits, the CPU time increases linearly with increasing number of components simulated, an advantage over fault simulators which simulate one fault at a time and display a quadratic behavior.
http://i.stanford.edu/pub/cstr/reports/csl/tr/83/242/CSL-TR-83-242.pdf