Towards Semantic Abstraction of Test Programs

Abstract:
Abstract—Existing test programs are typically tailored to a specific ATE vendor and platform. To move to another vendor or platform, a formal test specification would be highly desirable in order to generate code for the target platform. However, in case of inexistent formal specifications, it is necessary to convert test programs, which is a manual and error-prone process. In this paper, an approach is investigated that aims at helping the test engineer by extracting semantics of existing test programs automatically, providing a skeleton in a formal test specification language. As proof of concept, C++ test programs for Advantest SmarTest 7 platform were used; target specification language was UTSL. In general, this approach is platform-independent. Our methodology was able to extract semantic information, such as pin and level definitions, test setup information, and also test methods, including patterns/sequences, resulting in a proper UTSL file. We tested the approach on several examples, including two large industry test programs. The approach works well for test programs that have a flat structure, i. e., that do not make extensive use of custom libraries. In this case, an almost complete abstract model of the test program can be generated. Main limitation of this approach is if test programs feature custom libraries which provide an abstraction of the platform API. These cannot easily be managed as there is no proper representation in UTSL. Another drawback is that manual optimizations are lost. Index Terms—test program, formal specification, abstraction, ATE, Clang