Automated HITS to LASAR translation: Application, evaluation, opportunities, and obstacles

HITS (Hierarchical Integrated Test Simulator) and LASAR (Logic Automated Stimulus And Response) are two software platforms used for simulating digital circuits, determining their operation under specified faulty conditions, and judging the percentage of user-specified faults that are uniquely detected given a user-specified set of digital input patterns. These software platforms also generate files that may be imported onto automated test equipment (ATE) to allow the simulated input patterns to be applied to actual digital circuits and facilitate the detection of actual circuit faults. HITS is natively utilized on a variety of now-obsolete ATE systems and is, itself, obsolete. LASAR, on the other hand, is more technologically capable, manufacturer-supported, and utilized on myriad modern ATE systems. The need to migrate existing test application hardware and software from obsolete ATE systems that utilize HITS to supportable ATE systems that utilize LASAR presents the opportunity to simplify the migration effort by devising a method to automatically translate the simulation source data from HITS format into LASAR format.