Formulation of SOC test scheduling as a network transportation problem

Summary form only given. Reusability of tests is crucial for reducing total design time. This raises the problem of test knowledge transfer, physical test application and test scheduling. We present a formulation of the embedded core-based system-on-chip (SOC) test scheduling problem (ECTSP) as a network transportation problem. The problem is NP-hard and we present a O(mn(m+2n)) 2-approximation algorithm using the result of the single source unsplittable flow problem (U/sub FP/). We have implemented a Test Planner Tool TFLOW with the Common Lisp language using the U/sub FP/ algorithm given by Dinitz et al. (1999).