Title
Output-based Intermediate Representation for Translation of Test-pattern Program
Abstract
An Intermediate Representation (IR) used by compilers is normally generated statically, as a result of parsing or analyzing the source program. This paper proposes a completely different type of IR, generated as a result of running the source program, the output-based IR. There is a practical translation problem where such an IR is useful, in the domain of test-pattern programs. Test-pattern programs run on ATE (automatic test equipment), a special embedded system to test semiconductors such as DRAMs. They generate a pattern for each clock, a bit vector input to the pins of the chip. One issue is that different ATEs require different programming since each ATE manufacturer has its own programming language. Nonetheless, we should be able to test a memory chip on different ATEs as long as they generate the same patterns with the same speed. Therefore, a memory chipmaker wants to make a pattern program portable across ATEs, to fully utilize their ATE resources. One solution is translating between pattern programs, for which we need an IR since there are multiple source ATEs and target ATEs. Instead of a conventional, static IR, we propose using the output pattern itself as an IR. Since the pattern is independent of ATEs and easily obtainable, the output-based IR obviates designing a static IR considering all ATE programming languages and hardware differences. Moreover, we might synthesize a better target program from the IR, more optimized to the target ATE. However, the full pattern generated by a product-level pattern program is huge, so we propose using an IR of abbreviated patterns, annotated with the repetition information obtained while executing the source program. Our experimental results with product-level pattern programs show that our approach is feasible.
Year
DOI
Venue
2019
10.1145/3358186
ACM Transactions on Embedded Computing Systems (TECS)
Keywords
Field
DocType
Intermediate representation, automatic test equipment, domain-specific language, test-pattern program, translation
Computer science,Parallel computing,Theoretical computer science,Intermediate language
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
18
5s
1539-9087
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
0
0.34
0
Authors
6
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Minsu Kim101.01
Jeong-Keun Park200.34
Sungyeol Kim300.34
Insu Yang400.34
Hyunsoo Jung500.34
Soo-Mook Moon662387.96