A Bist Scheme for Non-Volatile Memories

A new BIST scheme for on-chip testing of non-volatile memories and based on signature analysis is presented. The signature of the whole memory, whose content can be changed selectively by the user, is dynamically self-learned by the memory and it is saved in a dedicated memory location. Either such a signature can be externally compared with the expected one in order to check for the programming operation, or it can be used for comparison purposes when data retention must be self-tested.