Abstract
Hardware scanning helps debug problems related to internal components within a device by capturing hardware states as a stream of bits, known as a scan chain. However, employing on-chip or off-chip memory for storage of scan data requires that the path to/from the memory be excluded from the hardware scan, creating a critical gap in debugging. Moreover, wired debugging interfaces are typically unavailable or inaccessible on remote production devices, which makes it challenging to retrieve the scan data quickly. This disclosure describes techniques to optimize the streaming of hardware scan data from on-chip crash manager applications employed to detect hardware failures and to identify the failure path. The techniques provide the ability to stream hardware scan data to non-persistent memory, persistent storage, or an external device via different interfaces. The scan data can then be streamed using an interface that avoids the possible failure path identified via the hardware/software logic of the on-chip crash manager application. The streaming interface can be selected by setting a control register through software and/or automatically via intelligent hardware based on relevant failure characteristics, such as type, place, or device.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Purohit, Kaushal and Wong, Victor, "Enhancing Hardware Scan Coverage by Selecting a Data Streaming Interface Unconnected to the Failure", Technical Disclosure Commons, ()
https://www.tdcommons.org/dpubs_series/8987