The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jul. 12, 2005
Filed:
Jul. 16, 2002
Zachary Steven Smith, Fort Collins, CO (US);
Lee Becker, Fort Collins, CO (US);
David Albert Heckman, Fort Collins, CO (US);
Zachary Steven Smith, Fort Collins, CO (US);
Lee Becker, Fort Collins, CO (US);
David Albert Heckman, Fort Collins, CO (US);
Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P., Houston, TX (US);
Abstract
Techniques are disclosed for automatically generating test instructions for use in testing a microprocessor design. A configuration file includes a plurality of knobs which specify a probability distribution of a plurality of microprocessor instructions. A random code generator takes the configuration file as an input and generates test instructions which are distributed according to the probability distribution specified by the knobs. The test instructions are executed on the microprocessor design. The microprocessor behaviors that are exercised by the test instructions are measured and a fitness value is assigned to the configuration file using a fitness function. The configuration file and its fitness value are added to a pool of configuration files. A configuration file synthesizer uses a genetic algorithm to synthesize a new configuration file from the pool of existing configuration files. This process may be repeated to generate configuration files which increasingly exercise microprocessor behaviors which are of interest.