coverage driven verification

Combining assertion-based verification techniques with emulation makes for easier debug, better coverage and greater functional efficiency.

Formal techniques can be applied to various parts of the verification challenge, including low-power and clock domain-crossing issues

As designs get larger and stress the ability of simulation to exercise an SoC, formal techniques have become essential parts of design and verification.

Verification coverage attempts to at least provide a partial answer to the question: "How do you know you are finished verifying?" It involves the combination of a number of techniques.

Debug of logic and testbench debug makes up 35% of chip design, and is growing as power-management and hardware/software issues become part of the task.

Functional logic errors remain a significant cause of project delays and re-spins. One of the main reasons is that two important aspects of verification environment quality—the ability to propagate the effect of a bug to an observable point and the ability to observe the faulty effect and thus detect the bug—cannot be analyzed or measured. [...]

The article describes how methodologies such as graph-based intelligent testbench automation will help engineers efficiently create verification scenarios and stimuli. This is a powerful way of enhancing advanced verification environments and reducing common verification headaches (e.g., reaching coverage goals). Such strategies can help to free up resources, in terms of time, people and hardware, so […]