Just TestIt! An SBST Approach To Automate System-Integration Testing
Abstract
This paper introduces TestIt, an open-source Python package designed to automate full-system integration testing using a Software-Based Self-Test (SBST) approach. By dynamically generating test vectors and golden references, TestIt significantly reduces development time and complexity while supporting both simulation and FPGA environments. Its flexible design positions TestIt as a key enabler for the widespread adoption of CI/CD methodologies in open-source RTL development. A case study on the X-HEEP RISC-V microcontroller (MCU), which integrates a custom accelerator, showcases TestIt's ability to detect hardware and software faults that traditional formal methods may overlook. Furthermore, the case study highlights how TestIt can be leveraged to characterize system performance with minimal effort. By automating testing on the PYNQ-Z2 FPGA development board, we achieved a 11x speed-up with respect to RTL simulations.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2504.07555,
title = {Just TestIt! An SBST Approach To Automate System-Integration Testing},
author = {Tommaso Terzano and Luigi Giuffrida and Juan Sapriza and Pasquale Davide Schiavone and Guido Masera and David Atienza and Luciano Lavagno and Maurizio Martina},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2504.07555},
year = {2025}
}