Exploiting MOEA to Automatically Generate Test Programs for Path-delay Faults in Microprocessors

This paper presents an innovative approach for the generation of test programs detecting path-delay faults in microprocessors. The proposed method takes advantage of the multiobjective implementation of a previously devised evolutionary algorithm and exploits both gate- and RT-level descriptions of the processor: the former is used to build Binary Decision Diagrams (BDDs) for deriving fault excitation conditions; the latter is used for the automatic generation of test programs able to excite and propagate fault effects, based on a fast RTL simulation. Experiments on an 8-bit microcontroller show that the proposed method is able to generate suitable test programs more efficiently compared to existing approaches.