Closing “quality gap” in functional verification !!!

Recently i came across a white paper on a new EDA tool certitude which is used to close the ”quality gap” in functional verification using mutation techniques. The tool introduces mutations in the RTL code and then subjects the mutated RTL to the verification team's test bench and checks if the verification environment has been able to detect, activate and propagate the mutations. If the verification environment is able to catch the mutations, then the verification is probably complete and there is a reasonable certainty that no bugs are left. If not, there could be serious weaknesses in the test bench and it needs to be reworked. Put simply, if the verification testbench cannot detect the mutations (or bugs) introduced, chances are there that other bugs are also left out.


Another way to see the situation is that after introducing mutations, we have two versions of the RTL code, one original and one mutated (say, bugs) and the verification environment is passing both. Clearly then there is a weakness in the verification environment which needs to be fixed.

The tool works with all the major simulators available in the market and works with all languages C, System C, System Verilog, Specman e, Vera.