Optimization of Mutant Space for RTL Test Generation

Mutations in the RTL design can help test generation to uncover bugs. However, since the mutant space is infinite, identifying the right mutants is critical. In this paper, we present two filtering approaches to identify the key mutants without loss in the branch coverage. The final set of test vectors generated is able to achieve both high branch coverage and mutation coverage. Experimental results show that we were able to reduce the overall test generation time up to 85% for all ITC99 benchmarks. In addition, we also found that the test suite length also decreased up to 78% for most of the ITC99 circuits.