Incremental fault dictionary

A diagnostic method in which diagnostic simulation results of current tests are stored in an incremental fault dictionary, and information in the incremental fault dictionary is used to avoid expensive redundant fault simulations, comprising:

• for faults associated with a failing device, perform fault simulations of failing patterns, while not repeating fault simulations of faults that have already been simulated for any of the failing patterns wherein faults are taken from a master fault list and from possible auxiliary fault lists that are produced during previous diagnoses and whose corresponding results are stored in the incremental fault dictionary, and complete the current diagnosis for the failing device, and add the diagnostic simulation results for the current diagnosis to the incremental fault dictionary if not already stored in the dictionary.

A diagnostic method in which diagnostic simulation results of current tests are stored in an incremental fault dictionary, and information in the incremental fault dictionary is used to avoid expensive redundant fault simulations, comprising:

• for faults associated with a failing device, perform fault simulations or failing patterns, while not repeating fault simulations of faults that have already been simulated for any of the failing patterns and whose corresponding results are stored in the incremental fault dictionary, and complete the current diagnosis for the failing device, add the diagnostic simulation results for the current diagnosis to the incremental fault dictionary if not already stored in the dictionary, and storing in the incremental fault dictionary the physical locations of the nets that are called out in the diagnosis, as well as the correspondence between the logical and physical netnames.

A diagnostic method in which diagnostic simulation results of current tests are stored in an incremental fault dictionary, and information in the incremental fault dictionary is used to avoid expensive redundant fault simulations, comprising:

• for faults associated with a failing device, perform fault simulations of failing patterns, while not repeating fault simulations of faults that have already been simulated for any of the failing patterns and whose corresponding results are stored in the incremental fault dictionary which is subdivided based upon the physical nature of the net/pins in a diagnosis, and complete the current diagnosis for the failing device, add the diagnostic simulation results for the current diagnosis to the incremental fault dictionary if not already stored in the dictionary.

A diagnostic method in which diagnostic simulation results of current tests are stored in an incremental fault dictionary, and information in the incremental fault dictionary is used to avoid expensive redundant fault simulations, comprising:

• for faults associated with a failing device, perform fault simulations of failing patterns, while not repeating fault simulations of faults that have already been simulated for any of the failing patterns and whose corresponding results are stored in the incremental fault dictionary, entering in the incremental fault dictionary an entry that a simulated fault produced no fails, or that a fault/pattern combination produced no fails far that pattern and complete the current diagnosis for the failing device, add the diagnostic simulation results for the current diagnosis to the incremental fault dictionary if not already stored in the dictionary.