Test-driven development of consumer electronics device drivers: A user-level device driver approach

Developing device drivers is important for innovative consumer electronics because device driver implements key functionalities of new devices. This paper suggests a test-driven development (TDD) of device drivers, taking advantage of user-level driver. Applying TDD to device drivers is difficult because usually device drivers are implemented inside kernel, and are tightly coupled with complex kernel driver framework, which hinders driver developers from using TDD. Therefore, testing the device driver mostly focused on interaction with the rest of the kernel, rather than the device operations. Recent user-level device driver separates device drivers from the kernel. Thus, we can easily apply TDD on device drivers, circumventing complex kernel operations, and focusing on device operations. In addition, we can effectively enlarge testing coverage, enhancing software quality.