http://www.peertopatent.org/patent/62/prior_art/list A method and apparatus provides programmable control of built-in self test. A programmable controller allows software selectively to run BIST on different ports of the complex circuit and examine the results. The programmable BIST controller is implemented to execute selected BIST operations, wherein software may choose to either enable or disable running of a particular BIST operation. en-us