Integrated circuits carrying intellectual property cores and test ports
AssigneeTexas Instruments Incorporated
InventorLee D. Whetsel
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An integrated circuit (100) includes functional input and output signal leads (101,111), input and output circuits (102,112) connected to the functional input and output signal leads, core circuitry (120, 122, 124), and interconnect wires and circuits (103) connecting the input and output circuits and the core circuitry. The integrated circuit further includes an addressable test port (105, 115, 135) for each core circuitry. Each test port is connected to its respective core circuitry and to the interconnect wires and circuits. External test signal leads (106) connected to each test port.
Claims4
An integrated circuit comprising:
- A. a substrate of semiconductor material;
- B. input and output data signal circuits formed on the substrate, the input and output data signal circuits passing data signals between exterior of the substrate and other circuits on the substrate, the input and output data signal circuits including data signal inputs and outputs on the substrate;
- C. interconnect circuitry formed on the substrate, the interconnect circuitry having data signal inputs at least partly connected to the data signal outputs of the input and output data signal circuits and having data signal outputs at least partly connected to the data signal inputs of the input and output data signal circuits;
- D. test port circuits formed on the substrate, the test port circuits having a mode signal output, parallel data signal outputs, parallel data signal inputs, control signal inputs and control signal outputs, at least some of the parallel data signal outputs being connected to the data signal inputs of the input and output data signal circuits and at least some of the parallel data signal inputs being connected to the data signal outputs of the input and output data signal circuits;
- and
- E. core circuitry formed on the substrate, the core circuitry having functional circuitry and test circuitry, the core circuitry having parallel data signal inputs connected to at least some of the parallel data signal outputs of the test port circuits, parallel data signal outputs connected to at least some of the parallel data signal inputs of the test port circuits, parallel control signal inputs connected to the control signal outputs of the test port and a mode signal input connected to the mode signal output of the test port circuits, the core circuitry including:
- i. input multiplexer circuits having parallel data signal inputs connected to the core circuitry parallel data signal inputs and data signal inputs connected to the data signal outputs of the interconnect circuitry and having data signal outputs connected to the functional circuitry and to the test circuitry;
- and
- ii. output multiplexer circuits having functional data signal inputs connected to the functional circuitry and having test data signal inputs connected to the test circuitry, and having parallel data signal outputs connected to the core circuitry parallel data signal outputs.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.