A Probabilistic Context-Free Grammar Based Random Test Program Generation

The aim of this paper is to show the use of a probabilistic context-free grammar in the domain of stimulus generation, especially random test program generation for processors. Nowadays, the randomly constructed test stimuli are largely applied in functional verification to verify the proper design and final implementation of systems. Context-free grammar cannot be used by itself in this case, because conditions for instructions of the program are changing during the generation. Therefore, there is a need to introduce additional logic in the form of constraints. Constraints guarantee the continuous changes of probabilities in the grammar and their application in order to preserve the validity of the program. The use of the grammar system provides a formal description of the stimuli, while the connection with constraints allows for the wide use in various systems. Experiments demonstrate that this approach is competitive with a conventional approach.

[1]  Jakub Podivinsky,et al.  The Evaluation Platform for Testing Fault-Tolerance Methodologies in Electro-Mechanical Applications , 2014, 2014 17th Euromicro Conference on Digital System Design.

[2]  David A. Patterson,et al.  Reduced instruction set computers , 1985, CACM.

[3]  Giovanni Squillero,et al.  MicroGP—An Evolutionary Assembly Program Generator , 2005, Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines.

[4]  Melanie Mitchell,et al.  An introduction to genetic algorithms , 1996 .

[5]  Giovanni Squillero,et al.  Automatic test program generation: a case study , 2004, IEEE Design & Test of Computers.

[6]  Andreas Meyer.  Principles of Functional Verification , 2003 .

[7]  Jan Hudec.  An efficient technique for processor automatic functional test generation based on evolutionary strategies , 2011, Proceedings of the ITI 2011, 33rd International Conference on Information Technology Interfaces.

[8]  Dorothea Heiss-Czedik,et al.  An Introduction to Genetic Algorithms. , 1997, Artificial Life.

[9]  Tsuneo Nakata,et al.  Functional verification of system on chips - practices, issues and challenges , 2002, Proceedings of ASP-DAC/VLSI Design 2002. 7th Asia and South Pacific Design Automation Conference and 15h International Conference on VLSI Design.

[10]  Robert Giegerich,et al.  Introduction to stochastic context free grammars. , 2014, Methods in molecular biology.

[11]  V. V. Belkin,et al.  ISA Based Functional Test Generation with Application to Self-Test of RISC Processors , 2006, 2006 IEEE Design and Diagnostics of Electronic Circuits and systems.

[12]  Giovanni Squillero,et al.  A genetic algorithm-based system for generating test programs for microprocessor IP cores , 2000, Proceedings 12th IEEE Internationals Conference on Tools with Artificial Intelligence. ICTAI 2000.