ylfink@water.UUCP (05/13/87)
DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE
UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO
SEMINAR ACTIVITIES
TESTING/THEORY SEMINAR
- Wednesday, May 20, 1987
Dr. J.A. Brzozowski of the Department of Computer Sci-
ence will speak on ``A Model for Sequential Machine
Testing''.
TIME: 3:30 PM
ROOM: MC 5158
ABSTRACT
A mathematical framework for testing and diagnosis of
sequential machines is developed. A very general fault
model is used in which a faculty machine is represented
as another sequential machine, possibly with a set of
states different from that of the good machine. The
set of all possible behaviours is conveniently
represented by a non-deterministic finite automaton,
called the fault schema. Another non-deterministic
finite automaton, called the fault observer, describes
the process by which one gains information from the
observation of the responses to test sequences. This
model is suitable for describing not only testing with
deterministic sequences, but is also extended to test-
ing with random sequences. Probabilities are associ-
ated with the fault schema and with the fault observer.
These, together with a stochastic source of input sym-
bols, provide a probabilistic test model. As a partic-
ular application we consider the testing and diagnosis
of random access memories by random test sequences.
Our model generalizes some work by David et al. on the
calculation of the length of a random test sequence
required to guarantee that the probability of detection
of a fault exceeds a prescribed threshold.