The paper, titled “Program Slicing for Hierarchical Test Generation,” formalized a “divide and conquer” method for taming the computational complexity of analyzing computer processor designs using CAD (Computer-Aided Design) tools.
Their paper demonstrated a novel approach of targeting individual design portions (called modules) one at a time, without having to use additional design elements as required in conventional methods. For a selected module, the irrelevant portions of the surrounding design were removed using a popular software technique called “program slicing.” The resulting “slice” of the program was used to implicitly apply the required constraints during the test generation for the specified module. The process was repeated for each design module to generate test patterns for the entire design, to be eventually used to ensure that the manufactured product conforms to its specifications.
Their methodology tremendously accelerated the test generation process, without any loss in quality, and allowed state-of-the-art CAD tools to be scalable for large designs.
Dr. Abraham holds the Cockrell Family Regents Chair in Engineering #8.
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