Simplifying SystemVerilog Functional Coverage

By Henry Chan - 22 Mar, 2018 - Comments: 0

Let’s say you have a block you need to verify. How do you know that the stimulus you are about to use is exhaustive enough and that you have covered the necessary scenarios/situations to prove it is working correctly? This is where functional coverage comes in. SystemVerilog’s functional coverage constructs allow you to quantify the completeness of your stimulus by recording the values that... » read more

System Coverage Undefined

By Brian Bailey - 28 Sep, 2017 - Comments: 1

When is a design ready to be taped out? That has been one of the toughest questions to confront every design team, and it's the one verification engineers lose sleep over. Exhaustive [getkc id="56" kc_name="coverage"] has not been possible since the 1980s. Several metrics and methodologies have been defined to help answer the question and to raise confidence that important aspects of a block... » read more

Full Coverage Or Full Monty

By Brian Bailey - 28 May, 2015 - Comments: 1

Without adequate coverage metrics and tools, verification engineers would never be able to answer the proverbial question: Are we done yet? But a lot has changed in the design flow since the existing set of metrics was defined. Does it still ensure that the right things get verified, that time is not wasted on things deemed unimportant or a duplication of effort, and can it handle today’s hie... » read more

Tech Talk: Better Coverage

By Ed Sperling - 08 Apr, 2015 - Comments: 1

Atrenta's Yuan Lu talks about code coverage, functional coverage and the use of assertions in debugging designs. [youtube vid=Hpm-l1z8HTo] » read more

Measuring Verification Accuracy

By Ann Mutschler - 20 Nov, 2014 - Comments: 0

[getkc id="10" kc_name="Verification"] is the unbounded challenge that continues to confound engineering teams across the globe, who want to know when "enough" is "good enough" to proceed to tapeout. The answer is not straightforward, and it includes more variables than in the past, particularly around power. Harry Foster, chief verification scientist at [getentity id="22017" e_name="Mentor ... » read more

Measuring Verification Productivity

By Ann Mutschler - 25 Jul, 2013 - Comments: 0

By Ann Steffora Mutschler In this era of mammoth SoCs that require the utmost in verification complexity, it’s not enough to have a methodology. Design and verification teams also need to measure their productivity to constantly stay ahead of the curve. The more sophisticated customers are measuring a lot of things, explained Steve Bailey, marketing director at Mentor Graphics, “and for... » read more

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Knowledge Centers
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