Techniques facilitating determination and correction of physical circuit event related errors of a hardware design are provided. A system can comprise a memory that stores computer executable components and a processor that executes computer executable components stored in the memory. The computer executable components can comprise a simulation component that injects a fault into a latch and a combination of logic of an emulated hardware design. The fault can be a biased fault injection that can mimic an error caused by a physical circuit event error vulnerability. The computer executable components can also comprise an observation component that determines one or more paths of the emulated hardware design that are vulnerable to physical circuit event related errors based on the biased fault injection.

Methods and systems for verifying, via formal verification, a hardware design for a data transformation pipeline comprising one or more data transformation elements that perform a data transformation on one or more inputs, wherein the formal verification is performed under conditions that simplify the data transformations calculations that the formal verification tool has to perform. In one embodiment the hardware design for the data transformation pipeline is verified by replacing one or more of the data transformation elements in the hardware design with a function element which is treated as an unevaluated function of its combinational inputs by a formal verification tool such that during formal verification the function element will produce the same output for the same inputs, and formally verifying that for each transaction of a set of transactions an instantiation of the modified hardware design for the data transformation pipeline produces a set of one or more outputs that matches a reference set of one or more outputs for that transaction.

Described herein are systems, methods, and other techniques for identifying redundant parameters and reducing parameters for testing a device. A set of test values and limits for a set of parameters are received. A set of simulated test values for the set of parameters are determined based on one or more probabilistic representations for the set of parameters. The one or more probabilistic representations are constructed based on the set of test values. A set of cumulative probabilities of passing for the set of parameters are calculated based on the set of simulated test values and the limits. A reduced set of parameters are determined from the set of parameters based on the set of cumulative probabilities of passing. The reduced set of parameters are deployed for testing the device.

A method for evaluating tests for fabricated integrated circuit (IC) chips includes providing, design for fault injection (DfFI) instances of an IC design that characterize activatable states of controllable elements in an IC chip based on the IC design. The method also includes fault simulating the IC design a corresponding identified test suite to determine a signature for faults and simulating the IC design with the DfFI instances activated to determine a signature for the DfFI instances. The method includes generating a DfFI-fault equivalence dictionary based on a comparison of the signature of the faults and DfFI instances and generating tests for a fabricated IC chip based on the IC design. The method includes receiving test result data characterizing the tests being applied against the fabricated IC chip with the DfFI instances activated and analyzing the test result data to determine an ability of the tests to detect the faults.

Techniques include configuring a sequential circuit monitor having been generated by applying a quantifier elimination to each random bit position of random inputs associated with a formal verification driver and selecting a value for random inputs to drive a next stage logic of sequential circuit simulation monitor, a state of the next stage logic being used by sequential circuit simulation monitor to generate sequential inputs to match those permitted by formal verification driver, formal verification driver being specified for a DUT input interface. An equivalence check between sequential circuit simulation monitor and original formal driver matches the same set of sequential inputs permitted original formal driver. The sequential circuit simulation monitor is coupled to a simulation environment and the DUT in simulation environment, sequential circuit simulation monitor being configured to flag an input sequence from the simulation environment not permitted by formal verification driver based on the sequential inputs.

Approaches for simulating a circuit include receiving simulation input data from a testbench executing on a computer system by a simulator interface executing on the computer system. The simulator interface receives simulation output data the according to a hardware bus protocol specified by a simulated circuit for communication and simulates handshaking with the simulated circuit according to the hardware bus protocol in response to receiving the simulation input data and simulation output data. The simulator interface provides the simulation input data to the simulated circuit by according to the hardware bus protocol and provides the simulation output data to the testbench.

A mixed signal testing system capable of testing differently configured units under test (UUT) includes a controller, a test station and an interface system that support multiple UUTs. The test station includes independent sets of channels configured to send signals to and receive signals from each UUT being tested and signal processing subsystems that direct stimulus signals to a respective set of channels and receive signals in response thereto. The signal processing subsystems enable simultaneous and independent directing of stimulus signals through the sets of channels to each UUT and reception of signals from each UUT in response to the stimulus signals. Received signals responsive to stimulus signals provided to a fully functional UUT (with and without induced faults) are used to assess presence or absence of faults in the UUT being tested which may be determined to include one or more faults or be fault-free, i.e., fully functional.

Aspects of the disclosed technology relate to techniques of activity coverage assessment. Transistor-level circuit simulation is performed for a circuit design under a set of test stimuli, which determines values of one or more electrical properties for each of circuit elements of interest in the circuit design. The one or more electrical properties are selected based on information of the each of circuit elements of interest, which comprises what circuit element type the each of circuit elements of interest belongs to. Based on the values of the one or more electrical properties, activity coverage information comprising information about which circuit elements in the circuit elements of interest are active or inactive under the set of test stimuli is determined.

Disclosed herein are exemplary methods, apparatus, and systems for performing timing-aware automatic test pattern generation (ATPG) that can be used, for example, to improve the quality of a test set generated for detecting delay defects or holding time defects. In certain embodiments, timing information derived from various sources (e.g. from Standard Delay Format (SDF) files) is integrated into an ATPG tool. The timing information can be used to guide the test generator to detect the faults through certain paths (e.g., paths having a selected length, or range of lengths, such as the longest or shortest paths). To avoid propagating the faults through similar paths repeatedly, a weighted random method can be used to improve the path coverage during test generation. Experimental results show that significant test quality improvement can be achieved when applying embodiments of timing-aware ATPG to industrial designs.

Techniques include configuring a sequential circuit monitor having been generated by applying a quantifier elimination to each random bit position of random inputs associated with a formal verification driver and selecting a value for random inputs to drive a next stage logic of sequential circuit simulation monitor, a state of the next stage logic being used by sequential circuit simulation monitor to generate sequential inputs to match those permitted by formal verification driver, formal verification driver being specified for a DUT input interface. An equivalence check between sequential circuit simulation monitor and original formal driver matches the same set of sequential inputs permitted original formal driver. The sequential circuit simulation monitor is coupled to a simulation environment and the DUT in simulation environment, sequential circuit simulation monitor being configured to flag an input sequence from the simulation environment not permitted by formal verification driver based on the sequential inputs.