Debugging Hardware Designs using Dynamic Dependency Graphs

Kurzfassung

Debugging is a time consuming task in hardware design. In this paper a new debugging approach based on the analysis of dynamic dependency graphs is presented. Powerful techniques for software debug- ging, including reverse debugging, dynamic forward and backward slicing, and spectrum-based fault lo- calization are combined and adapted for hardware designs. A case study on designs with multiple faults approved the power of the proposed debugging methodology reducing the debugging time to 50% in comparison to conventional techniques.