System-level test bench generation in a co-design framework

Co-design tools represent an effective solution for reducing costs and shortening time-to-market, when System-on-Chip design is considered. In a top-down design flow, designers would greatly benefit from the availability of tools able to automatically generate test benches, which can be used during every design step, from the system-level specification to the gate-level description. This would significantly increase the chance of identifying design bugs early in the design flow, thus reducing the costs and increasing the final product quality. The paper proposes an approach for integrating the ability to generate test benches into an existing co-design tool. Suitable metrics are proposed to guide the generation, and preliminary experimental results are reported, assessing the effectiveness of the proposed technique.