A new PLA design for universal testability

A new design of universally testable PLA's is presented in which all multiple faults can be detected by a universal test set which is independent of the function being realized by the PLA. The proposed design has the following properties. (1) It can be tested with function-independent test patterns; hence, no test pattern generation is required. (2) The amount of extra hardware is significantly decreased compared to the previous designs of universally testable PLA's. (3) Very high fault coverage is achieved, i.e., all single and multiple stuck faults, crosspoint faults, and adjacent line bridging faults are detected. (4) It is appropriate for built-in testing approaches. (5) It can be applied to the high-density PLA's using array folding techniques.