Design error diagnosis and correction via test vector simulation

With the increase in the complexity of digital VLSI circuit design, logic design errors can occur during synthesis. In this paper, we present a test vector simulation-based approach for multiple design error diagnosis and correction. Diagnosis is performed through an implicit enumeration of the erroneous lines in an effort to avoid the exponential explosion of the error space as the number of errors increases. Resynthesis during correction is as little as possible so that most of the engineering effort invested in the design is preserved. Since both steps are based on test vector simulation, the proposed approach is applicable to circuits with no global binary decision diagram representation. Experiments on ISCAS'85 benchmark circuits exhibit the robustness and error resolution of the proposed methodology. Experiments also indicate that test vector simulation is indeed an attractive technique for multiple design error diagnosis and correction in digital VLSI circuits.