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Abstract-The design of hardware systems is a challenging and erroneous task where about 70% of the effort in designing these systems is spent on verification. In general, testing and verification are usually tasks that are being applied as a postprocess to the implementation.In this paper, we propose a new design flow based on Behavior Driven Development (BDD), an agile technique for the development of software in which acceptance tests written in natural language play a central role and are the starting point in the design flow. We advance the flow such that the specifics that arise when modeling hardware are taken into account. Furthermore, we present a technique that allows for the automatic generalization of test cases to properties that are suitable for formal verification. This allows the designer to apply formal verification techniques based on test cases without specifying properties.We implemented our approach and evaluated the flow for an illustrative example that successfully demonstrates the advantages of the proposed flow.

Abstract-Nowadays, the design of software systems is pushed towards agile development practices. One of its most fundamental approaches is Test Driven Development (TDD). This procedure is based on test cases which are incrementally written prior to the implementation. Recently, Behavior Driven Development (BDD) has been introduced as an extension of TDD, in which natural language scenarios are the starting point for the test cases. This description offers a ubiquitous communication mean for both the software developers and stakeholders.Following the BDD methodology thoroughly, one would expect 100% code coverage, since code is only written to make the test cases pass. However, as we show in an empirical study this expectation is not valid in practice. It becomes even worse in the process of development, i.e. the coverage decreases over time. To close the coverage gap, we sketch an algorithm that generates BDD-style scenarios based on uncovered code.

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