Patents by Inventor John I. Hickman

John I. Hickman has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 5012471
    Abstract: An automatic test pattern generator and process assigns value-strength number to selected nodes representing the electrical characteristic strength of integrated circuits including field effect transistors and the logic state values at those nodes. These value-strength numbers become sensitized to the inputs of the selected node and become propagated to outputs of the selected node for establishing patterns for test signals. The test signals later become used in chip testers for determining good and bad integrated circuit chips. The value-strength numbers also become used in dynamic testing of the integrated circuit nodes by using clock signals of the integrated circuit to establish a transition at a start node of a test path. Within a known clock period later, the transition should become captured at an end node of the test path.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 30, 1988
    Date of Patent: April 30, 1991
    Assignee: Texas Instruments Incorporated
    Inventors: Theo J. Powell, John I. Hickman, Jeri J. Crowley