Efficient partial scan cell gating for low-power scan-based testing

Gating of the outputs of a portion of the scan cells (partial gating) has been recently proposed as a method for reducing the dynamic power dissipation during scan-based testing. We present a new systematic method for selecting, under area and performance design constraints, the most suitable for gating subset of scan cells as well as the proper gating value for each one of them, aiming at the reduction of the average switching activity during testing. We show that the proposed method outperforms the corresponding already known methods, with respect to average dynamic power dissipation reduction.