Predicting Scan Compression IP Configurations for Better QoR

Scan compression technology is essentially IP that provides an interface between the scan-inputs/outputs and the internal scan chains. The IP configuration that is put into the design is based upon some user specified constraints that are related to the target compression and the available scan terminals. The configuration selected may or may not be the best suited for the design it is inserted in. Usually the compression IP can be configured in many different ways. Some configurations are better suited for particular designs than others. If one were able to predict the configuration of the compression IP to match the needs of the design then one would expect the best results from the compression technology. In this paper we describe a method to predict the optimum IP configuration for Adaptive Scan, which is a specific type of compression technology. The concepts and methodology discussed here are applicable to any compression scheme.