Systems and methods are provided for testing many-core processors consisting of processing element cores. The systems and methods can include grouping the processing elements according to the dataflow of the many-core processor. Each group can include a processing element that only receives inputs from other processing elements in the group. After grouping the processing elements, test information can be provided in parallel to each group. The test information can be configured to ensure a desired degree of test coverage for the processing element that that only receives inputs from other processing elements in the group. Each group can perform testing operations in parallel to generate test results. The test results can be read out of each group. The processing elements can then be regrouped according to the dataflow of the many-core processor and the testing can be repeated to achieve a target test coverage.