This thesis presents a physical-aware critical path tracing technique for defect diagnosis. To cope with masking effect, reinforcement effect, and Byzantine effect, the concept of section and section-based fault simulation are proposed. To solve fanout reconvergence problem, the idea of reverse dominator is proposed. Simulation on three ISCAS’89 and ITC’99 benchmark circuits with multiple open defects demonstrate the effectiveness of our technique. The average accuracy of our technique (0.87) is higher than traditional critical path tracing technique’s (0.81). Our technique also has better resolution (3.9) than traditional critical path tracing technique’s (5.59)