This document presents a fault tolerant embedded RAM architecture using BISR (Built In Self Repair) technique. The architecture uses normal words in the RAM as redundancy instead of adding extra rows and columns, which reduces area. It consists of BIST (Built In Self Test), MUX, and BISD (Built In Self Diagnosis) modules. The BIST module tests the memory using the MarchC- algorithm and detects faults. The BISD module stores fault addresses and replaces them with redundant addresses. The architecture can repair faults in normal locations as well as redundant locations. It was implemented on a Spartan3E FPGA and able to successfully detect and repair stuck-at faults.

1. FPGA Implementation of Fault Tolerant Embedded
RAM using BISR Technique
Swathi Karumuri, Suresh Chowdary Kavuri
Dept., of VLSI and Embedded systems, Dept., of Electronics and Communication Engineering, JNTU Hyderabad, India
swathisubadra@gmail.com
kavurisureshchowdary@gmail.com
Abstract-- Embedded memories with fault tolerant capability can
effectively increase the yield.The main aim of this project is to
design a fault tolerant memory which is capable of detecting stuck
at faults and to repair them automatically. It uses BISR with
redundancy scheme in order to achieve this. The architecture
consists of a multiplexer (MUX), memory (circuit under
test-CUT), Built in self test (BIST) module, Built in self diagnosis
(BISD) module. Besides adding spare rows and columns user can
select normal words as redundancy to repair the faults. So, it
reduces the area. High repairing speed is possible with one to one
mapping between faults and redundancy locations. It provides
test mode and access mode to the RAM users. Many repairing
schemes were implemented where repairing is not possible if the
redundancy locations have faults. This proposed architecture
shows the number of redundant locations and depending on that
it has the advantage of repairing faults in redundancy locations
also. The proposed model is simulated and synthesized using
Xilinx and tested using Spartan3E development board.
Keywords-- Built in self diagnosis (BISD), Built in self repair
(BISR), Built in self test (BIST), FPGA, VHDL.
I. INTRODUCTION
With improvement in VLSI technology, more and more
components are fabricated onto a single chip. It is estimated
that the percentage of area occupied by embedded memories on
an SOC is more than 65% and will rise up to 70% by 2017[1].
The increasing use of large embedded memories in SOCs
require automatic reconfiguration to improve yield and
performance. Memory fabrication yield is limited to
manufacturing defects, alignment defects, assembly faults,
random generated defect patterns, random leakage defects and
other faults and defects [2]. To detect defects in a memory,
many fault models and test algorithms have been developed
[3]. Most of these algorithms have been in use. To increase the
yield and efficiency of embedded memories, many redundancy
mechanisms have been proposed in [4]-[7]. In [5]-[6] both
redundant rows and columns are incorporated into the memory
array. Repairing the memory by adding spare words, rows and
columns into the word oriented memory core as redundancy is
proposed in [7]. All these redundancy mechanisms increase the
area and complexity in designing of embedded memories. A
new redundancy mechanism is proposed in this paper in order
to solve the problem. Some normal words in embedded
memories can be considered as redundancy instead of adding
extra rows and columns. It is necessary to test the memory
before using redundancy mechanisms to repair the faults. In
1970’s, circuit under test is tested by external equipments
called ATEs. BIST controlled DFT circuitry is more efficient,
time-saving and less cost compared to the ones controlled by
the external tester (ATE) [8]. However, BIST doesn’t repair the
faults. BISR techniques tests embedded memories, saves the
fault addresses and replaces them with redundancy. [5]
Presents multiple redundancies scheme and [9] proposes BISR
strategy applying two serial redundancy analysis (RA) stages.
All the previous BISR techniques have the ability to repair
memories, but they can not avoid storing fault addresses more
than once. [10] proposes a solution to this but it cannot repair
redundant location faults. This paper proposed an efficient
strategy that can repair redundancy faults also.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section II briefs
different fault models, March algorithms and BIST. Section III
introduces the proposed BISR technique. Section IV shows the
experimental results. Section V concludes this paper. Section
VI gives the future work.
II. FAULT MODELS, MARCH ALGORITHMS AND BIST
A fault model is a systematic and precise representation of
physical faults in a form suitable for simulation and test
generation [11]. Different RAM faults are as follows and can
be referred in [12].
 AF: Address Fault
 ADOF: Address Decoder Open Faults
 CF: Coupling Faults
 DRF: Data Retention Faults
 SAF: Stuck-at Faults
 SOF: Stuck Open Faults
 TF: Transition Faults
Memory test algorithms are two types where traditional tests
are either simple, fast but have poor fault coverage or have
good fault coverage but complex and slow. Due to this
imbalance conflicts, the these algorithms are losing popularity.
The details of these algorithms and comparison can be referred
in [13]-[14]. An Efficient memory test should provide the best
fault coverage in the shortest test time. March tests are the most
common in use. They have good fault coverage and short test
time. In order to verify whether a given memory cell is good, it
is necessary to conduct a sequence of write(w) and read(r)
operations to the cell. The actual number of read/write
operations and the order of the operations depend on the target
fault model. March element is a finite sequence of read/write
operations applied to a cell in memory before processing the
next cell. The next cell address can be ascending or descending
in order. The comparison of different march algorithms are
tabulated in Table I [15]. MarchC- algorithm has better fault
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2. coverage, less operations and less test length. It has 6 elements
and 10 operations. So it is used in this paper to test the memory.
The steps in MarchC- algorithm are as follows”
TABLE I
MARCH ALGORITHMS AND FAULT COVERAGE
1 up - W0
2 up – (R0, W1)
3 up – (R1, W0)
4 down – (R0, W1)
5 down – (R1, W0)
6 down - R0
In above steps, W represents write, R represents read, “up”
represents executing RAM addresses in ascending order while
“down” in descending order. Write0(1) represents writing
0(1)into the memory, read 0(1) represents expected data(0 or 1)
from the memory in read operation.
The BIST module contains a test pattern generator and an
output response analyzer (ORA). MarchC- algorithm is used to
generate the test patterns and a comparator is used as an ORA.
The output from the memory in read operation is compared
with expected data in the corresponding March element and
indicates whether there are any faults in memory or not. It can
also indicate if the memory test is done by activating test_done
to 1.
III. PROPOSED BISR TECHNIQUE
A. Proposed Redundancy Mechanism
The proposed architecture is flexible. Some normal words in
RAM can be selected as redundancy if it needs to repair itself.
To distinguish them from the normal ones we name these
words as Normal-Redundant words. We take a 64x4 RAM as
shown in Fig.1 as an example. There are 58 normal words and 6
Normal-Redundant words. When repairing is not used, the
Normal-Redundant words are accessed as normal ones. The
Normal-Redundant words can be accessed, when there are
faults in normal words. This kind of selectable redundancy
architecture can increase efficiency and save area.
B. Proposed BISR Architecture
The architecture of Proposed BISR is shown in Fig.2. It
consists of 3 parts named as BIST module, MUX module, and
BISD module. BIST module produces test inputs to the
memory using MarchC- algorithm. It detects the failures in
memory by comparing RAM output data with expected data of
MarchC- algorithm. compare_q=1 for faulty addresses. It
asserts test _done to 1 when testing is completed. BISD module
stores the faulty address in Fault_A_Mem. It maintains a
counter to count the number of faulty addresses. When the
count exceeds the maximum
Fig. 1 Proposed Redundancy mechanism in RAM
redundancy limit it activates overflow signal. It shows the
number of faults in redundant locations. When repairing is
activated, faulty addresses are replaced with redundant
addresses. MUX module controls the access between test mode
and access/user mode. In test mode (test_h=1) BIST generates
the inputs to the memory and in access mode (test_h=0) the
inputs are equal to the system inputs or user inputs.
Fig. 2 Architecture of proposed BISR
C. Built in Self Repair Procedure
Fig. 3 shows the flowchart for testing and repairing
mechanism used. The BISR starts by resetting the system
initially (rst_l=0).After that the system should be tested to find
the faults in the memory. In this phase BIST and BISD modules
works in parallel. BIST detects the fault address and it will be
sent to the BISD. It checks it with already stored addresses .If
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3. the faulty address has not been stored it stores in Fault_A_Mem
and the counter increments. It will be ignore otherwise. After
the test phase there will be two conditions. If there are no faults
or there are too many faults that overflows the redundancy
capacity, BISR goes into COMPLETE phase. If there are faults
in memory but without overflows then BISR goes into
REPAIR and TEST phase. As in TEST phase, BIST and BISD
works in parallel. BISD replaces the fault addresses with
redundant ones. It can repair the faults in redundancy locations
also. BIST module tests the memory again. There will be two
results, repair pass or fail. Fig. 4 shows the storing and
repairing fault addresses.
Fig. 3 Flow chart of testing and repairing mechanism
Fig. 4 Flow of storing fault addresses & repairing mechanism
D. BISR Features
The first feature is, BISR is efficient. Normal redundant
words can be used when repairing is not activated. It saves chip
area. The fault addresses are stored only once. March algorithm
has 6 steps. The address will be read five times in one test.
Some faulty addresses will be detected mpore than one time.
Take stuck-at-1 fault, it will be detected in 2nd
, 4th and 6th
steps
but the fault addresses should not be stored thrice. So, one to
one mapping is proposed in BISD module.
Second feature is, BISR is flexible. In access mode user can
decide whether to use repairing or not. If BISR, i.e. repairing is
activated redundant locations are used for repairing .Table II
shows the operating modes of RAM.
Third feature is, it’s repairing speed is high. With one-one
mapping it can replace the faulty location’s address with
corresponding redundant address very quickly.
TABLE II
OPERATING MODES OF RAM
E. Proposed Repairing Mechanism to Repair Faults in
Redundant Locations
In order to repair the faults, there should not be any faults in
redundant locations. After test phase Fault_A_Mem contains
all the faulty addresses. If it contains all normal location faults,
then the mapping shown in Fig. 4 works good. If the
Fault_A_Mem contains redundant location addresses then
mapping faulty address with corresponding faulty redundant
location results in faulty output again. To solve this problem
the repairing mechanism is modified slightly and is shown in
Fig. 5 where there is one redundant and four normal faults.
Fig. 5 Mapping procedure in presence of redundant fault
Fault-address 3 is mapped with redundant address 5 as
redundant address 3 is in Fault_A_Mem. Fig. 6 shows the flow
chart. If there are redundant faults then the resultant redundant
address should be checked in Fault_A_Mem .If there are any
unmapped redundant locations, then mapping is done to that
redundant location, if the new redundant location is fault free.
If it is faulty again then next unmapped redundant location is
considered and checking continuous until the new redundant
location is fault free. Otherwise repairing fails.
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4. Fig. 6 Flow chart for repairing redundant and normal faults
IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
The proposed BISR is simulated and synthesized using
Xilinx and is checked on Spartan 3E FPGA kit. A stuck-at-0
and stuck-at-1 faults are set into the memory to verify the
function. It is observed that in presence of faults, the data
written into and data read from the faulty location is not same if
repairing is not activated. Repairing is activated and is
observed that the locations are repaired. It is also verified that
the faults in redundant locations are repaired. Fig. 7 shows the
output when redundant and normal faults are repaired.
V. CONCLUSION
A fault tolerant embedded RAM using BISR technique has
been presented in this paper. It uses selectable redundancy and
is designed flexible such that user can select the operating
modes. BISD module avoids storing the fault addresses more
than once. The mechanism for repairing redundant locations
faults has been proposed and is observed that it efficiently
repairs the redundant faults along with normal faults.
VI. FUTURE WORK
The proposed architecture is mainly focused on
stuck-at-faults in the memory using MarchC- algorithm. There
are many fault models such as address decoder faults, transition
faults etc; and there are different test algorithms. Therefore a
future work can improve the proposed architecture to repair the
above mentioned faults in the memory using different test
algorithms.
Fig.7 Output showing repairing of redundant location faults(rounded), normal
faults
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