A specification driven hierarchical test methodology

A specification-driven hierarchical test methodology supporting both top-down and bottom-up design philosophies is presented. The methodology is built upon the SBL design system and uses modules described in the authors´ in-house HDL, SBL (Structural and Behavioral Language). A requirements specification for a circuit comprises a functional specification, describing the behavior of the circuit; a time specification, specifying the required timing of the module´s interface; and a test specification describing, in an algorithmic manner, a set of tests to be performed on the circuit. As the designer proceeds through the design cycle, in a top-down fashion, additional information about the circuit is used to incrementally modify the test specification to increase its fault coverage. The tests specified by the designer are then used to validate the other views of the circuit at each stage of the design cycle, using an integrated simulation and testing environment. In a bottom-up methodology, a test for a complete circuit is built from the combination of the specified tests of its submodules and generation of tests for their interconnections