Sunday, June 23, 2013

Leveraging Verification manager tools for objective closure

Shrinking schedules topped with increasing expectations in terms of more functionality opened up gates for reusability in the semiconductor industry. Reusability (internal or external) is constantly on a rise both in design & verification. Following are some of the trends on reusability presented by Harry Foster at DVCLUB UK, 2013 based on Wilson Research Group study in 2012, commissioned by Mentor Graphics.
 



Both IP and SOC now demand periodic releases targeting specific features for a customer or a particular product category. It is important to be objective in terms of verifying the design for the given context to ensure the latest verification tools & methodologies do not dismiss the required focus. With verification claiming most of ASIC design schedule in terms of efforts & time, conventional schemes fail in managing verification progress and extending predictable closure. There is a need for a platform that helps in directing the focus of CRV, brings in automation around coverage, provides initial triaging of failures and aids in methodical verification closure. While a lot of this has been done using in house developed scripts, there is a significant time spent in maintaining it. There are multiple solutions available in the market and the beauty of being into consulting is that you get to play around with most of them considering customer preferences towards a particular EDA flow.
 
QVM (Questa Verification Manager) is one such platform provided by Mentor Graphics. I recently co-authored an article (QVM : Enabling Organized, Predictable and Faster Verification Closure) published in Verification Horizons, DAC 2013 edition. This is available on Verification academy or you can download the paper here too.