Late breaking results: FRIENDS - Finding related interesting events via neighbor detection

We present Finding Related Interesting Events via Neighbor Detection (FRIENDS), a novel approach to assist verification teams with coverage closure. FRIENDS uses formal verification to find the neighboring events of a never-hit, or hard-to-hit, coverage event. The neighbor events of a given target event are defined as those events for which a test hitting them has higher probability of hitting the target event than a test not hitting them. Assuming that some of the neighboring events are easier to hit than the target event itself, this information can be used by the team or by a Coverage Directed Generation (CDG) tool during the coverage closure process.