Abstract
The hardware address translation mechanism is an essential part of modern microprocessor memory management. The ever-growing demand for performance and low power of integrated circuits makes this mechanism exceptionally complex, and its verification requires sophisticated test generation tools. This paper presents a solution, based on constraint satisfaction, to generate stimuli for testing address translation.
The address translation process passes through a sequence of steps and can therefore be naturally described as a directed acyclic graph. We developed a framework that we call graph-based constraint satisfaction problems (GCSP). These problems consist of a directed graph, combined with a CSP, where each variable and constraint of the CSP is linked to a particular node or edge of the graph. A solution to the problem is a path in the graph, such that all constraints defined along this path must be satisfied. We base our algorithm for solving GCSPs on conditional CSP. We successfully used this technology to verify the memory management units of several industrial microprocessors.
E. Tsanko and M. Veksler—Work done while this author was at IBM Research.
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Notes
- 1.
IBM, the IBM logo, and ibm.com are trademarks or registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corp., registered in many jurisdictions worldwide. Other product and service names might be trademarks of IBM or other companies. A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at “Copyright and trademark information” at www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml.
- 2.
The definition for ACSP that we provide here is slightly different, yet equivalent to the definition in [13].
- 3.
For two constraints \(c_1,~c_2\) such that \(AS(c_1)=AS(c_2)\), and a variable v which is a parameter of both constraints, it is sufficient to create one shadow variable.
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Acknowledgments
Many people helped in discussions and in implementation of models for different architectures. In particular, we would like to warmly thank Ahmed Issa, Adi Dagan, Asaf Slilat, Elad Venezian, Oz Hershkovitz, Michal Rimon, Karen Holtz, and Alexandra Skolzub for using our technology and providing important insights.
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Aharoni, M., Ben-Haim, Y., Doron, S., Koyfman, A., Tsanko, E., Veksler, M. (2016). Using Graph-Based CSP to Solve the Address Translation Problem. In: Rueher, M. (eds) Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming. CP 2016. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9892. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44953-1_53
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