Software-based microprocessor verification methodology for Linux booting

The first program executed on the general microprocessor is the operating system (OS) to setup and initiate the necessary mechanisms like as the cache unit, interrupt, memory management unit (MMU), etc. However, OS verification is a heavy and complicate task. This paper proposes a software-based verification methodology for the microprocessor. This verification covers the whole functionalities of the Linux OS including the pipelined core, exception control unit, cache unit and MMU. The authors applies the proposed methodology to validate ARM7-like microprocessor for booting Linux. They also develop the verification generation techniques for regression test. The experimental results show that the proposed methodology detects the 47 design bugs leading to a system crash at the startup stage.