An affordable post-silicon testing framework applied to a RISC-V based microcontroller

Abstract

The RISC-V architecture is a very attractive option for developing application specific systems needing an affordable yet efficient central processing unit. Post-silicon validation on RISC-V applications has been done in industry for a while, however documentation is scarce. This paper proposes a practical low-cost post-silicon testing framework applied to a RISC-V RV32I based microcontroller. The framework uses FPGA-based emulation as a cornerstone to test the microcontroller before and after its fabrication. The platform only requires a handful of elements like the FPGA, a PC, the fabricated chip and some discrete components, without losing the capacity to functionally validate the design under test and save development testing time by using a re-utilize philosophy.