Architecture-Independent Generator

Concept

The Architecture-Independent Generator is a component of a test program generation system for hardware processor design verification. It operates as an interpreter of an external declarative architectural specification, separating architectural and testing knowledge from the control logic of test generation. This decoupling enables a single generator implementation to be reused across multiple processor architectures, including non-traditional processors such as graphic engines and I/O controllers.

First seen 6/13/2026

Last seen 6/13/2026

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Overview

The Architecture-Independent Generator is a software component that produces test programs for validating hardware processor designs without being tied to any specific instruction-set architecture. It was described in U.S. Patent 6,006,028 (International Business Machines Corporation) as part of a broader test program generation system that overcomes the limitations of prior architecture-dependent generators, which required a new implementation for each target architecture.

In the patented system (referenced in FIG. 1), four major components work together:

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Declarative Architectural Specification uses → 98% 2e

The architecture-independent generator interprets the external declarative database rather than embedding architectural knowledge procedurally.

Test Generator Implementation in C ← implements 95% 1e

The C implementation realizes the architecture-independent generator as described in the invention.

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Declarative Architectural Specification USES Extracted graph relationship

Test Generator Implementation in C IMPLEMENTS Extracted graph relationship

CITATIONS

13 sources

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[1] The Architecture-Independent Generator is a component of a system for test program generation that comprises an architectural model, an architecture simulator, an architecture-independent generator, and a user-interface. Test program generator - International Business Machines Corporation

[2] The architecture-independent generation process can be viewed as an interpreter of the external database, and keeping the architectural simulator separate from the generator removes a major source of system complexity. Test program generator - International Business Machines Corporation

[3] The generator and user-interface have been implemented in C, each spanning about 30,000 lines of code. Test program generator - International Business Machines Corporation

[4] The architectural model contains a specification of instructions, resources, and data types, stored in an object-oriented database with classes for instructions, operands, fields, resources, data types, generation, and validation functions. Test program generator - International Business Machines Corporation

[5] A generation function object includes a specification of its input and output parameters, and a combination of values for input parameters corresponds to elements of the testing knowledge the function represents. Test program generator - International Business Machines Corporation

[6] The invention removes the need to reimplement a generator for each architecture and reduces the cost of developing a generator for a new architecture, because the model is external to the generator. Test program generator - International Business Machines Corporation

[7] Each instruction is represented in the specification as a tree whose first level encodes the syntax and whose last level encodes the possible values and relations between semantic entities. Test program generator - International Business Machines Corporation

[8] The generator traverses the tree in depth-first order, generating an instance of each semantic entity in accordance with choices made at previous traversal steps, and maintains consistency by committing to decisions made at earlier stages of traversal. Test program generator - International Business Machines Corporation

[9] Generation functions and validation criteria are tailorable by the user so that desired types of test cases can be generated; if a generated instance does not satisfy validation, generation is repeated. Test program generator - International Business Machines Corporation

[10] The invention provides an architecture-independent test generator and an external architectural model that drives it, by separating knowledge from control. Test program generator - International Business Machines Corporation

[11] The relationships between semantic entities associated with each instruction, and between those entities and the processor resources, are modelled in the declarative specification without describing the effect of executing the instruction. Test program generator - International Business Machines Corporation

[12] The approach can be used at an early stage of processor development, when only parts of the design are available, and can be applied to non-traditional processors such as graphic engines and I/O controllers. Test program generator - International Business Machines Corporation

[13] The full test generation system spans approximately 150,000 lines of C code. Test program generator - International Business Machines Corporation