Exploiting the Connectivity metric in test programs generation

The escalating complexity of today's systems-on-chip (SoCs) poses an increasing challenge to verifying their full functionality. Modern applications of such devices often require stringent safety standards. To uphold such a rigorous level of quality, the need for lengthy procedures that ensure high fault coverage has become increasingly crucial. Multiple techniques to speed up this process have been proposed over the years but, in this article, we will focus on the connectivity metric proposed by Francesco Angione et al. We will discuss the possibility of using the proposed metric to shorten the time required to generate a test program. We will exploit a well-known test program generation tool, known as microGP, evolving an initial population focusing first on the connectivity metric to quickly reach a population of individuals with reasonable features before switching to the traditional fault simulation metric.