Abstract: Code defects are common yet critical issues in hardware design. During the development and maintenance phases, defect debugging remains a highly manual and time-consuming task nowadays for hardware developers. How to free hardware developers from arduous debugging tasks has become a  pressing  need in the field of hardware verification. Consequently, automated debugging technologies for hardware description language (HDL) code defects have emerged and gradually become a  research hot- spot. To systematically organize the work in this field, this paper conducts a survey and analysis of research on automated debugging technologies for HDL code defects. It elaborates  and analyzes the research progress of automated debugging technologies from three aspects — the defect analysis, automated defect detection and localization, and automated defect repair. Additionally, it discusses the limitations of current technologies and the challenges they face.

Key words: hardware description language, debugging, fault localization, automated program repair