Patent ID: 7395470

Claim:
A method for performing diagnostics on a scan chain having a plurality of latches, the method comprising: diagnosing a scan chain employing at least one fuse coupled to at least one latch of the scan chain to load a first logic value into the at least one latch at known location(s) within the scan chain, wherein the at least one fuse couples to the at least one latch at a system port thereof; and wherein the diagnosing the scan chain comprises unloading logic values from the scan chain, and if the scan chain is broken, localizing a break in the scan chain from the unloaded logic values by comparison thereof with the known location(s) of the at least one latch of the scan chain loaded with the first logic value via the at least one fuse, wherein at least one known location of the known location(s) of the at least one latch is positioned between the break in the scan chain and a scan-out of the scan chain.