Microelectronics Journal, 23 (1992) 482-483
New Books
Digital Systems Testing
and Testable Design
M. Abramovici, M.A. Breur and
A.D. Friedman. Computer Sci-
ence Press, N e w York, 1991,652
pp., £43.95.
his book is a successor to
T the earlier text by Professors
Breur and Friedman entitled
Diagnosis and Reliable Design
of Digital Systems, and has been
completely re-written and ex-
tended in comparison with the
much earlier text. The above
two authors are well-known
academics with very extensive
publication records; the third
author (MA) w h o has n o w
joined them for this latest pub-
lication is a m e m b e r o f the
I<&D staff of AT&T Bell Labs,
and also a Visiting Professor at
the Illinois Institute o f Technol-
ogy in Chicago. All are emi-
nently qualified to write in this
particular subject area.
The book provides a compre-
hensive coverage of practical
digital systems testing and test-
able design. It is intended for
use as a text by undergraduate
students, and also as a reference
text for post-graduate research
students and engineers involved
482
in all aspects of digital design.
Analogue aspects are not cov-
ered. Considerable emphasis is
placed throughout on practice
and on simulation, with sinmla-
6on software program examples
being included wherever appro-
priate.
The material is divided into fif-
teen chapters, each of which
concludes with a good set of
References for further study,
and a set o f Problems. N o an-
swers are provided for the latter,
many being open-ended ques-
tions.
The chapter lengths give a good
indication of the depth o f cov-
erage of the individual aspects
o f design and test, reflecting in
t u r n the existing available
knowledge in these topic area.
For example, it is significant but
n o t surprising that over 100
pages and 98 end-of-chapter
References are given to single
stuck-at faults modelling, but
only 16 pages and 6 References
to bridging faults. Admittedly
the former testing techniques
will cover a very high percent-
age of bridging faults as well,
but it is an indication that the
theory for bridging fault mod-
els is not extensive or accep-
0026-2692/92/$5.00 © 1992, Elsevier Science Publishers Ltd.
tance as the stuck-at case.
All current testing concepts,
such as scan and boundary-scan
design methodologies, BIST
architectures and signature
analyses for example, are well
covered. O n e criticism that
could be made is that the chap-
ter on PLA testing might have
been given greater emphasis
and coverage. However this is a
minor criticism in what is over-
all a good and comprehensive
text, particularly in its simula-
tion algorithms and program
coverage. SPICE is not in-
cluded anywhere in this text,
being too low a functional level
for the purposes of this book,
and therefore students must
look elsewhere for more funda-
mental circuit simulation de-
tails.
In conclusion, the authors'
comments given at the front o f
this book on how the text was
written are illuminating: they
very honestly admit that it was
difficult to write text through
the 1980s and keep the material
up-to-date with fast-moving
developments which necessi-
tated several re-writes. M O S
and k A M testing were two
chapters that were finally aban-
New Books
doned due to the difficukies of
being up-to-date, although
these are promised in a future
edition. Nevertheless the
authors must be congratulated
on producing one of the most
wide-ranging texts currently
available in this important sub-
ject area.
M.S. Harris.
Electro-Optical System
Design for Information
Processing
Clair L. Wyatt. McGraw-Hill,
NY, 1991,342 pp., £45.00.
he book, which is one in the
T McGraw-Hill series of O p -
tical and Electro-Optical Engi-
neering texts, is a revised and
extended version of Professor
Wyatt's earlier b o o k entitled
P,.adiometric System Design,
and has been expanded to re-
flect later advances in electro-
optical engineering. The
author, w h o is professor of en-
gineering and senior research
engineer at the Utah State Uni-
versity Space Dynamics Labo-
r a t o r y , has c o n s i d e r a b l e
experience in this subject area.
T h e book is divided into two
parts. Part I, which consists of
Chapters 1 to 9, is rather am-
biguously entitled Figures of
Merit and Feasibility Study, and
deals with fundamental physics
and device and system concepts;
Part II, which consists of Chap-
ters 10 to 20, is rather grandly
entitled Detailed Design, and
deals with the mathematics but
not the engineering details of a
range of optical and electro-op-
tical systems. A final set of four
short Appendices on Units, SI
Prefixes, Atomic Constants, and
the Elements and their Chemi-
cal Symbols concludes the text.
The first part of Chapters 1 to
9 introduces the concept that
any electro-optical system for
information processing can be
modelled in terms of six basic
subsystems, namely the source,
the intervening media, the op-
tical subsystem, the focal plane,
the signal-conditioning elec-
tronics, and the output display.
Specific chapters then consider
radiant sources, their detection,
the signal processing and other
fundamentals. The coverage of
the signal-conditioning elec-
tronics is basic signal processing
mathematics, no circuit dia-
grams or circuit details being
given. Indeed nowhere in the
complete text are any detailed
circuits or detailed circuit sche-
matics covered.
Chapters 10 to 20 of Part II
continue with greater emphasis
u p o n specific topics, such as
black-body radiation, optical
systems, imaging systems, ther-
mal detectors,photomultipliers,
blocked impurity band detec-
tors, low-noise pre-amplifiers
and calibration and error analy-
sis. T h e chapter on low-noise
amplifiers is the only chapter
w h i c h c o n c e r n s itself w i t h
some circuit detail, although
even here only an ideal single
operational amplifier is the
principle electronic device in-
volved. T h e style throughout is
clear and unambiguous, with
good supporting diagrams.
This is very largely a physics
rather than an engineering text.
It could well be used as a good
course textbook for students in
physics departments and possi-
bly s o m e signal processing
courses, but apart from being a
useful source of basic informa-
tion on opto electronics is un-
l i k e l y to be o f p r a c t i c a l
significance to many profes-
sional design engineers.
P.D. Picton
483