Test generation for subtractive specification errors

Abstract

We propose Specification-Based Test Generation (SBTG) which automatically generates functional tests directly from specification, rather than the HDL description of the design. The main benefit of generating tests from the specification is the ability to detect Specification-based Translation Errors (SBTEs) that occur due to a misunderstanding of the specification. Our results show that our test generation approach is more effective at detecting these errors than approaches that generate tests from the HDL code to maximize code coverage metrics.