Abstract
This paper proposes a new signaling method for efficient scan design based on the dual use of on-chip power lines. The proposed signaling scheme intends to increase the channel capacity for the multiple parallel scan design, and we suggest adoption of the UWB (ultra wideband) and direct sequence-code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) communication technologies. Because of the wide bandwidth, a UWB signal can reduce its average power level practically to the noise level. The DS-CDMA further mitigates the noise and allows multiple scan inputs to share the interconnected power lines. We studied the feasibility of the proposed scheme through SPICE simulations and present the simulation results for a power distribution networks consisting of two metal layers.