Patent ID: 7430700

Claim:
A method for using stimulations and responses of a known good device to increase fault coverage of patterns in a test flow, said method comprising the steps of: a) pausing on one of said patterns in said test flow; b) providing an appropriate computer program; c) having said appropriate computer program query a user regarding a plurality of items; d) having said appropriate computer program start processing one inspect vector within an inspect vector range by characterizing each signal on said inspect vector with non-strobed characters to determine whether an output signal is being driven; e) if said output signal is being driven, having said appropriate computer program change said non-strobed character to a high or low strobe character to provide a new vector, depending on whether said output signal is an output that is being driven to a high or low state; f) running said pattern with said new vector for consecutive passes required at both minimum and maximum VDD device power settings to insure said new vector is not marginal; g) if any of said high or low strobe characters fail during consecutive passes at said minimum and maximum VDD device power settings, resetting said high or low strobe characters back to said non-strobed characters and retesting; and h) repeating steps (d) through (g) as necessary.