Exploiting Evolutionary Computation in an Industrial Flow for the Development of Code-Optimized Microprocessor Test Programs

It is well-known that faults affecting an electronic device may compromise its correct functionality, and industries have to check that their devices are fault-free before selling them. In case of a processor core, this task may be accomplished by running specially written "test" programs. In industrial embedded applications, however, shrinking such programs is strictly required. The hard problems of generating and code-optimizing test programs are tackled in this paper by exploiting an evolutionary approach.