Coverage Driven High-Level Test Generation Using a Polynomial Model of Sequential Circuits

This paper proposes a high-level test generation method which considers the control part as well as data path of a register transfer level circuit as a set of polynomial functions to generate behavioral test patterns from faulty behavior instead of comparing the faulty and fault-free circuits based on a hybrid Boolean-word canonical representation called Horner expansion diagram. Since this set of polynomial functions express primary outputs and next states with respect to primary inputs and present states, it is not necessary to perform justification/propagation phase which leads to a minimum number of backtracks. It improves fault coverage and reduces test generation time over logic-level techniques. We assess then the effectiveness of high-level test generation with a simple gate-level automatic test pattern generation algorithm. Experimental results show robustness and reliability of our method compared to other contemporary approaches in terms of fault coverage and CPU time.