IC Test Signal Timing Skew Monitoring for Coverage Analysis

The invention changes the testing approach from exhaustive state enumeration to timing-parameter-based testing. By monitoring timing skews between test signals and using histograms to capture timing distributions, the system achieves comprehensive coverage without exponential growth in test cases. The timing parameters (skew values, histograms) replace the need to exhaustively enumerate all internal states.

The invention adds a temporal dimension to signal combination testing by introducing timing skew monitoring. Instead of only checking signal combinations at discrete time points, the system continuously monitors timing relationships between signals and represents them in histograms. This temporal dimension allows comprehensive coverage of signal interactions without exponentially increasing the number of discrete test cases.

The system uses self-service by automatically capturing timing information through the timing skew monitor and automatically generating histograms from the captured data. The histograms themselves serve as the testing resource, providing a compact representation of timing variations without requiring extensive external testing resources. The system serves itself by deriving timing coverage metrics directly from operational signal monitoring.