A MCM interconnect test generation approach using ant colony algorithm with crossover and mutation operator

Interconnect test technology has become a bottleneck in the application of MCM. In this paper, a new Multi-chip Module (MCM) interconnect test generation approach based on ant colony algorithm (ACA) with crossover and mutation operator is presented. By combing the characteristics of MCM interconnect test, the pheromone updating rule and state transition rule of ant colony algorithm is designed. Using crossover and mutation operator, this approach overcomes ordinary ant colony algorithm's defects of slow convergence speed, easy to get stagnate, and low ability of full search. The international standard MCM benchmark circuit provided by the MCNC group was used to verify the approach. The results of simulation experiments, which compare to the results of standard ant colony algorithm, genetic algorithm (GA) and other deterministic interconnecting test generation algorithms, show that the proposed approach can achieve higher fault coverage and more compact test sets.