hardware verification

GoGoTB: Agentic RTL Verification with Specification-Grounded Coverage Closure

arXiv:2607.26181

summary

GoGoTB is an agentic framework that uses large language models to automatically generate complete verification environments for RTL designs and achieve specification‑grounded coverage closure without human intervention.

Abstract

Functional verification dominates integrated circuit (IC) front-end engineering effort, and a single missed bug that escapes to silicon can trigger a costly respin. Recent large language models (LLMs) offer new opportunities to automate this process, yet existing LLM-based approaches generate each component through independent single-turn calls with no shared context, leaving interface mismatches undetected and reported coverage disconnected from specification requirements. To address these challenges, we present GoGoTB, an agentic framework that achieves end-to-end verification closure through three subsystems: an agentic execution control layer, an evolvable knowledge system, and specification-grounded coverage closure. The execution control layer separates deterministic enforcement from LLM reasoning at every tool and stage boundary. The knowledge system dispatches methodology and design-specific expertise on demand. The coverage framework anchors every bin to a named specification behavior so that each residual gap has a diagnosable root cause and a targeted remedy. Tested on 8 register transfer level (RTL) designs without any human intervention, GoGoTB achieves 100\% environment generation success and averages 98.4\% line, 97.2\% branch, 97.0\% toggle, and 83.2\% functional coverage. No prior work successfully generates a complete verification environment or achieves meaningful coverage on the same benchmarks.

9 pages, 7 figures, 3 tables. Xin Xin and Jincheng Lou contributed equally to this work and share first authorship

Topics & keywords

#rtl verification#large language models#agentic framework#coverage closure#automated test generationlarge language modelagentic execution controlevolvable knowledge systemspecification-grounded coverageregister transfer levelfunctional coverage