Treffer: Parallel Algorithms For Test Generation And Fault Simulation

INTRODUCTION 1.1. Parallel Processing for VLSI CAD With the increased complexity of VLSI circuits, existing Computer-Aided Design (CAD) algorithms will not be able to handle large circuits in a reasonable amount of time. It is possible to propose better heuristics to speed up CAD applications running on a uniprocessor, but the speedup obtained is going to be only marginal compared to the significantly higher speedup possible on multiprocessors. Due to time limitation on the uniprocessor, many CAD algorithms may sacrifice quality to save on time. Due to the tremendous computing power available on multiprocessors, it may be possible to get better quality solutions for the same amount of time as that spent on the uniprocessor. In recent years, parallel processing has gained popularity due to the availability of high-level languages and primitives to specify parallelism, concurrent debugging tools and better user interfaces. Parallel processing hardware has also become more