US 5,202,889 AGranted

Dynamic process for the generation of biased pseudo-random test patterns for the functional verification of hardware designs

AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation

InventorsAharon Aharon, Ayal Bar-David, Raanan Gewirtzman, Emanuel Gofman, Moshe Leibowitz, Victor Shwartzburd

Life of this patent

Estimating the term…

Loading patent…

Abstract

In the dynamic process for the generation of biased pseudo-random test patterns for the functional verification of integrated circuit designs, the verification is performed in a sequence of steps, with each test pattern providing all data required to test a circuit design during at least one of said steps. Generation of each step is performed in two stages, where in a first stage all facilities and parameters required for the execution of the respective step are defined and assigned the proper values, and where in a second stage the execution of the particular step is performed. This process is continued until a test pattern with the number of steps requested by the user is generated, so that finally the test pattern comprises three parts: The initialized facilities define the initial machine state and execution parts of the test pattern, and the values of the facilities which have been changed during the execution of the steps, form the results part of the test pattern.

Claims12

Dependent claims

Dynamic process for generating biased pseudo-random test patterns for the functional verification of an integrated circuit design, wherein the verification is performed in a sequence of steps defined by a user, and wherein each of the test patterns provides all data required to test the circuit design during at least one of said steps, said process comprising:

a) performing each of said steps in a first and a second stage, wherein facilities and parameters required for executing said step are defined and initialized in said first stage, and wherein said step is executed in said second stage;
b) repeating a) until the test pattern having the number of steps requested by the user is generated, and whereupon completion of said generation said test pattern comprises:
the initialized facilities that define an initial machine state;
the execution of the step that drives the simulation of said design;
and
final values of said facilities that incorporate changes that occurred during the execution of said steps to include expected results of said test pattern.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.