the present invention provides a transparent latch circuit capable of performing a scan test in general scan design . in the transparent latch circuit a test signal is at a low level during normal operation . since a latch stop circuit outputs a high - level latch stop signal , a slave latch circuit has a received signal pass through it directly and a master latch circuit operates as a latch circuit in response to a signal output from an inverter . on the other hand , a test signal is at a high level during scan test . at this point , the latch stop circuit outputs a signal complementary to the signal output from the inverter . therefore , the master latch circuit and the slave latch circuit operate as latch circuits responding to signals complementary to each other . thereby , the entire transparent latch circuit operates as a flip - flop circuit .