National Science Foundation Workshop on Future Research Directions in Testing of Electronic Circuits and Systems: executive summary of workshop report

The goals of the meeting were (1) to identify emerging and mature research areas within the VLSI testing field in order to help focus the field on research necessary to develop algorithms and techniques for testing VLSI circuits and systems designed using future technologies, (2) to address issues related to increasing the impact of the VLSI test field on education in electrical and computer engineering, and (3) to identify models and mechanisms for enhancing the interaction, collaboration and data-sharing between industry and academia. To facilitate focused discussion at the meeting, an electronic survey was conducted prior to the meeting. A list of 8 survey questions regarding test research topics, education, and interaction between academia and industry was sent to about 50 test researchers. More than 40 responses were received. A summary of the survey responses is given in Section 3. The complete responses and the participants of the survey are included in the appendix. A two-day meeting was held in Santa Barbara, California on May 12 and 13, 1998. There was a total of 21 participants 9 from academia, 11 from industry and one from NSF. Each participant presented a position statement at the meeting. The meeting then broke up into four working groups: • Group A: Emerging and mature research topics related to high levels of abstraction, • Group B: Emerging and mature research topics related to low levels of abstraction, • Group C: Industry and university interaction/collaboration, and • Group D: Education. Issues and research topics raised in the survey responses and the position statements were thoroughly discussed in the working group meetings. This summary report contains findings and recommendations from these four working groups. These represent the collective views of the people participating in the workshop meeting with guidance taken from the electronic survey responses.