Taming Concurrency


Concurrency adds complexity for which the industry lacks appropriate tools, and the problem has grown to the point where errors can creep into designs with no easy or consistent way to detect them. In the past, when chips were essentially a single pipeline, this wasn't a problem. In fact, the early pioneers of EDA created a suitable language to describe and contain the necessary concurrency ... » read more

Fundamental Shifts In 2018


What surprised the industry in 2018?  While business has been strong, markets are changing, product categories are shifting and clouds are forming on the horizon. As 2018 comes to a close, most companies are pretty happy with the way everything turned out. Business has been booming, new product categories developing, and profits are meeting or beating market expectations. "2018 was indeed a... » read more

Debug Tops Verification Tasks


Verification engineers are spending an increased percentage of their time in debug — 44%, according to a recent survey by the Wilson Research Group. There are a variety or reasons for this, including the fact that some SoCs are composed of hundreds of internally developed and externally purchased IP blocks and subsystems. New system architectures contribute to the mix, some of which are be... » read more

Portable Test and Stimulus Standard Version 1.0


The definition of the language syntax, C++ library API, and accompanying semantics for the specification of verification intent and behaviors reusable across multiple target platforms and allowing for the automation of test generation is provided. This standard provides a declarative environment designed for abstract behavioral description using actions, their inputs, outputs, and resource depe... » read more

Make-Or-Break Time For Portable Stimulus


I’m pretty upbeat when it comes to portable stimulus. Or maybe it’d be better to say I’m pretty upbeat on the idea of portable stimulus. While doing my best to brush aside the usual EDA propaganda (propaganda I’ve found to be a bit haphazard, but more on that in a minute), I’ve put a lot of thought into how portable stimulus could fit into verification flows, the purpose of using it a... » read more

Making Declarative Modeling Modular: Portable Stimulus Introduces Dynamic Constraints


Naturally, Accellera’s Portable Stimulus Standard (PSS) supports the powerful capabilities of advanced verification techniques that are well-known in the industry today, including object-oriented composition and constrained-random stimulus. But the PSS also supports a new constraint capability, called dynamic constraints. Dynamic constraints support the critical mission of the PSS by makin... » read more

Three Things You Need To Know To Use The Accellera PSS


Three primary considerations for adopting the Accellera Portable Stimulus Standard (PSS) are understanding the following: the value and relevance of this standard; the fundamental concepts of PSS modeling, including building blocks, process, and mindset; and PSS portability and how these scenarios can be applied to a specific platform. In this paper, we explore these three topics. To read mo... » read more

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