Test Program Generator

Additional Resources

When generating a complete test program it may be necessary to build some components that don’t naturally fall out of the regular flow generation. Some examples of this might be:

• Creating a test which does not have a flow entry, but perhaps you want to keep it available in your program for engineering use.
• Creating a test program sheet or file that is not supported by an Origen generator, e.g. the IG-XL DC Specs sheet does not currently have a generator.
• Creating custom VB, C++ or similar code to support your tests.

All of these goals can be fulfilled by using a Resources file. Resources files are very similar to the Flow files that we have already seen, the main difference is that any flow entries generated within a Resources file will automatically be inhibited.

This makes generating tests and their resources (e.g. pattern sets, etc.) without a flow entry extremely easy - just use the same code that you would normally use in the Flow file and you will automatically get everything needed for the test without the flow entry.

Resource files are syntactically equivalent to Flow files except that all references to Flow are replaced by Resources:

# program/probe_resources.rb
Resources.create do

end

So for example without changing our interface at all we can drop some of our previous Flow code into the resources file (flow specific attributes such as bin numbers can be removed):

# program/probe_resources.rb
Resources.create do

  func :vreg_functional

  para :vreg_meas, lo: 1.12, hi: 1.34

end

This would generate the same program as before but with no flow entries for the generated tests.

Parameterizable sub-resource files can be created in exactly the same way as sub-flow files.

Another common use case for a Resources file is to co-ordinate the compilation of template files.

See the Compiler section for details on how to create templates.

A compile method is available with a Resources file to invoke and customize the compilation of a specific file. Any arguments passed in will be accessible within the template via its options method.

# program/common_resources.rb
Resources.create do

  compile "templates/j750/DCSpecs.txt", max_vdd: 5.V

  compile "templates/j750/GlobalSpecs.txt", vreg_period: 40.ns

end

As discussed previously a conventional Origen program generation flow would be to generate both the flow and the tests from a single flow file. However it is also possible to generate the program in a more traditional way where the test and flow generation are separated.

To do this use Resources files to generate the tests and all of their dependencies. This would look very much like the flow file examples we have seen so far, the main difference would be that each test would only ever appear once (although if you did generate duplicates by accident Origen would still take care of it).

Then to define the flow you would have Flow files that called interface methods to insert flow entries only. This flow file would be a simplified version of what we have seen so far since the attributes of the test are no longer required. For example you might make a new interface method called ‘test’ which calls a test in the flow - at flow level there is no longer any conceptual difference between a parametric test and a functional test and so they can all use the same method. Here is a previous example that only contains the flow concerns (includes ‘cz’ and ‘bin_out’ methods since these are also flow level concerns):

Flow.create do

  test :vreg_meas, softbin: 105, id: :vreg_meas_1

  if_failed :vreg_meas_1 do
    # Automatically characterize the vreg if the measurement fails
    cz :vreg_meas, softbin: 107
    # Then bin out
    bin_out softbin: 105
  end

  # Check if the HVST has already been run on this device
  test :rd_vreg_hvst_passcode, softbin: 50, id: :vreg_hvst_done

  unless_passed :vreg_hvst_done do
    # If not run it
    test :vreg_hvst, softbin: 101
    # And program the flag for next time
    test :pgm_vreg_hvst_passcode, softbin: 51
  end

end

If you want to use the same methods in the Resources and Flow files you can use the resources_mode? method within your interface to control when the flow or the tests should be generated. This method will return true if the interface method has been called from a Resources file:

# lib/vreg/interface.rb

# Create a functional test and call it from the flow
def func(name, options={})
  name = namer(name, options)
  if resources_mode?
    # generate the test
  else
    # generate the flow entry
  end
end