Adaptive defect simulation flow for Defect-oriented Test evaluation

For AMS-RF circuits, functional test is usually considered the best way to test a circuit. By construction, it should detect any fault (i.e. performance loss) and consequently it does not require a-priori validation. However, defect-oriented strategies require an evaluation of the test quality prior to their implementation. This implies resorting to computationally intensive defect simulation campaigns. In this work, we propose an adaptive defect simulation loop that evaluates at each step the defect coverage and the fault escape rate of the test under validation and determines the best way to employ the computational power as a function of the test target metrics. That is to say, if it is better to simulate the performance setup to update the fault escape metric or, conversely, to simulate the proposed test setup to update the defect coverage metric.