There is a wide variety of test techniques available. Some techniques are more efficient than others.
Some techniques are more costly than others.
They tend to rely on silicon area that could have been used for system functionality or circuit performance. The first two projects address this issue. The first project considers the physical mechanisms behind the misbehavior of faulty ICs, and uses a current signature to enable high resolution testing and accurate defect diagnosis. The growth in size and complexity of ICs has resulted in the need for more effective automatic test pattern generation schemes. ATPG techniques can also be used in pre-fabrication verification of complex superscalar processors.