Functional Testing of a Microprocessor Through Linear Checking Method

The gate-level testing also called low-level testing is generally appropriate at the design time and for small circuits. The chip-level testing and board-level testing also called high-level testing are preferred when the circuit complexities are too high, making it difficult to perform low level testing in a reasonable amount of time. The cost of low-level testing is also generally very high. Such high costs and time are only justified when some design-changes are required. In this paper, a high level quick checking method, known as Linear Checking Method, is presented which can be used to qualify the functionality of a Microprocessor. This can also be used to check hard faults in Memory chips.