Bottom-Up Generation of Verilog Designs for Testing EDA Tools

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Vieira, João Victor Amorim, Gomes, Luiza de Melo, Sumitani, Rafael, Maciel, Raissa, Mafra, Augusto, Crepalde, Mirlaine, Pereira, Fernando Magno Quintão
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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author Vieira, João Victor Amorim
Gomes, Luiza de Melo
Sumitani, Rafael
Maciel, Raissa
Mafra, Augusto
Crepalde, Mirlaine
Pereira, Fernando Magno Quintão
author_facet Vieira, João Victor Amorim
Gomes, Luiza de Melo
Sumitani, Rafael
Maciel, Raissa
Mafra, Augusto
Crepalde, Mirlaine
Pereira, Fernando Magno Quintão
contents Testing Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools rely on benchmarks -- designs written in Hardware Description Languages (HDLs) such as Verilog, SystemVerilog, or VHDL. Although collections of benchmarks for these languages exist, they are typically limited in size. This scarcity has recently drawn more attention due to the increasing need for training large language models in this domain. To deal with such limitation, this paper presents a methodology and a corresponding tool for generating realistic Verilog designs. The tool, ChiGen, was originally developed to test the Jasper\textregistered\ Formal Verification Platform, a product by Cadence Design Systems. Now, released as open-source software, ChiGen has been able to identify zero-day bugs in a range of tools, including Verible, Verilator, and Yosys. This paper outlines the principles behind ChiGen's design, focusing on three aspects of it: (i) generation guided by probabilistic grammars, (ii) type inference via the Hindley-Milner algorithm, and (iii) code injection enabled by data-flow analysis. Once deployed on standard hardware, ChiGen outperforms existing Verilog Fuzzers such as Verismith, TransFuzz, and VlogHammer regarding structural diversity, code coverage, and bug-finding ability.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_06295
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Bottom-Up Generation of Verilog Designs for Testing EDA Tools
Vieira, João Victor Amorim
Gomes, Luiza de Melo
Sumitani, Rafael
Maciel, Raissa
Mafra, Augusto
Crepalde, Mirlaine
Pereira, Fernando Magno Quintão
Hardware Architecture
Programming Languages
68N99
D.3.4; B.6.3; D.2.5
Testing Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools rely on benchmarks -- designs written in Hardware Description Languages (HDLs) such as Verilog, SystemVerilog, or VHDL. Although collections of benchmarks for these languages exist, they are typically limited in size. This scarcity has recently drawn more attention due to the increasing need for training large language models in this domain. To deal with such limitation, this paper presents a methodology and a corresponding tool for generating realistic Verilog designs. The tool, ChiGen, was originally developed to test the Jasper\textregistered\ Formal Verification Platform, a product by Cadence Design Systems. Now, released as open-source software, ChiGen has been able to identify zero-day bugs in a range of tools, including Verible, Verilator, and Yosys. This paper outlines the principles behind ChiGen's design, focusing on three aspects of it: (i) generation guided by probabilistic grammars, (ii) type inference via the Hindley-Milner algorithm, and (iii) code injection enabled by data-flow analysis. Once deployed on standard hardware, ChiGen outperforms existing Verilog Fuzzers such as Verismith, TransFuzz, and VlogHammer regarding structural diversity, code coverage, and bug-finding ability.
title Bottom-Up Generation of Verilog Designs for Testing EDA Tools
topic Hardware Architecture
Programming Languages
68N99
D.3.4; B.6.3; D.2.5
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.06295