US 7,444,574 B2Granted

Stimulus extraction and sequence generation for an electric device under test

AssigneeInternational Business Machines Corporation

InventorsMaureen Terese Davis, Katherine Ann Dunning, Tony Emile Sawan

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Abstract

A method and system that utilizes a graphical interface that enables a user to select and capture building blocks of a Device Under Test (DUT) test scenario from a previously run test case or from multiple stimulation results. Each of these extracted building block events or “tags” are created from a slice of a graphical stimulation view, which slice is converted into a coded stimulus written in a high-level language code that represents the condition(s) that created the graphical simulation view. These coded stimuli (representing the tags) are stored in a library. To create a corner case scenario or sequence in the DUT, a user utilizes a graphical interface to select the different extracted tags from the library and combines them together.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A method comprising:

applying a stimulus to a Design Under Test (DUT);
creating an original simulation results graphical view of resulting signals created by the stimulus;
selecting and tagging one or more time-based windows in the original simulation results graphical view as tagged windows, wherein the tagged windows describe multiple temporal slices for capturing and representing events during a particular time period in the original simulation results graphical view;
extracting one or more of the tagged windows to identify one or more events within the tagged windows to selectively create extracted expressions of identified events;
categorizing each of the extracted expressions according to a specific time window, in the original simulation results graphical view, from which each of the extracted expressions were extracted, wherein the categorizing describes original temporal positions of the extracted expressions;
and
reordering the extracted expressions as reordered combined multiple extracted expressions to create a different event scenario for inputs to the DUT, wherein the different event scenario describes different temporal positions of the extracted expressions as compared to the original temporal positions of the extracted expressions.

4 more elements

A tangible computer-usable storage medium on which is stored a computer program, the computer program comprising:

program code for applying a stimulus to a Design Under Test (DUT);
program code for creating an original simulation results graphical view of resulting signals created by the stimulus;
program code for selecting and tagging one or more time-based windows in the original simulation results graphical view as tagged windows, wherein the tagged windows describe multiple temporal slices for capturing and representing events during a particular time period in the original simulation results graphical view;
program code for extracting one or more of the tagged windows to identify one or more events within the tagged windows to selectively create extracted expressions of identified events;
program code for categorizing each of the extracted expressions according to a specific time window, in the original simulation results graphical view, from which each of the extracted expressions were extracted, wherein the categorizing describes original temporal positions of the extracted expressions;
program code for reordering the extracted expressions as reordered combined multiple extracted expressions to create a different event scenario for inputs to the DUT, wherein the different event scenario describes different temporal positions of the extracted expressions as compared to the original temporal positions of the extracted expressions;
program code for capturing the identified events as extracted expressions;
program code for translating the extracted expressions to generate a DUT stimuli;
and
program code for applying the generated DUT stimuli to the DUT.

7 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 11/064,729Filed 24 Feb 2005
Published: US 2006/0190233 A124 Aug 2006
Granted: 28 Oct 2008
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification5 codes

G01R 31/31922
Stimuli generation or application of test patterns to the device under test [DUT]: timing generation or clock distribution
G01R 31/31917
Tester hardware, i.e. output processing circuits: stimuli generation or application of test patterns to the device under test [DUT]
G06F 30/33
Circuit design at the digital level: design verification, e.g. functional simulation or model checking
G01R
Measuring electric variables