Comprehensive Functional Verification: The Complete Industry Cycle (Hardcover)

One of the biggest challenges in chip and system design is determining whether the hardware works correctly. That is the job of functional verification engineers and they are the audience for this comprehensive text from three top industry professionals. As designs increase in complexity, so has the value of verification engineers within the hardware design team. In fact, the need for skilled verification engineers has grown dramatically--functional verification now consumes between 40 and 70% of a project's labor, and about half its cost. Currently there are very few books on verification for engineers, and none that cover the subject as comprehensively as this text. A key strength of this book is that it describes the entire verification cycle and details each stage. The organization of the book follows the cycle, demonstrating how functional verification engages all aspects of the overall design effort and how individual cycle stages relate to the larger design process. Throughout the text, the authors leverage their 35 plus years experience in functional verification, providing examples and case studies, and focusing on the skills, methods, and tools needed to complete each verification task. Additionally, the major vendors (Mentor Graphics, Cadence Design Systems, Verisity, and Synopsys) have implemented key examples from the text and made these available on line, so that the reader can test out the methods described in the text.

Comprehensive Functional Verification: The Complete Industry Cycle Part I: Introduction to Verification Chapter 1: Verification in the Chip Design Process 1.1 Introduction to Functional Verification 1.2 The Verification Challenge 1.3 Mission and Goals of Verification 1.4 Cost of Verification 1.5 Areas of Verification beyond the scope of this book 1.6 The Verification Cycle: A Structured Process 1.7 Summary 1.8 Exercises Chapter 2: Verification Flow 2.1 Verification Hierarchy 2.2 Strategy of Verification 2.3 Summary 2.4 Exercises Chapter 3: Fundamentals of Simulation Based Verification 3.1 Basic Verification Environment: A Test Bench 3.2 Observation Points: Black-box, White-box and Grey-box verification 3.3 Assertion Based Verification ? An overview 3.4 Test benches and Testing Strategies 3.5 Summary 3.6 Exercises Chapter 4: The Verification Plan 4.1 The Functional Specification 4.2 The Evolution of the Verification Plan 4.3 Contents of the Verification Plan 4.4 Verification example: Calc1 4.5 Summary 4.6 Exercises Part II: Simulation Based Verification Chapter 5: HDLs and Simulation Engines 5.1 Hardware Description Languages 5.2 Simulation Engines - Introduction 5.3 Event-Driven Simulation 5.4 Improving Simulation Throughput 5.5 Cycle-Based Simulation 5.6 Waveform Viewers 5.7 Summary 5.8 Exercises Chapter 6: Creating Environments 6.1 Testbench Writing Tools 6.2 Verification Coverage 6.3 Summary 6.4 Exercises Chapter 7: Strategies for Simulation based Stimulus Generation 7.1 Calc2 Overview 7.2 Strategies for Stimulus Generation 7.3 Summary 7.4 Exercises Chapter 8: Strategies for Results Checking in Simulation Based Verification 8.1 Types of Result Checking 8.2 Debug 8.3 Summary 8.4 Exercises Chapter 9: Pervasive Function Verification 9.1 System Reset and Bring-up 9.2 Error and Degraded Mode Handling 9.3 Verifying Hardware Debug Assists 9.4 Low Power Mode Verification 9.5 Summary 9.6 Exercises Chapter 10: Re-Use Strategies and System Simulation 10.1: Re-Use Strategies 10.2: System Simulation 10.3: Beyond General Purpose Logic Simulation 10.4: Summary 10.5: Exercises Part III: Formal Verification Chapter 11 Introduction to Formal Verification 11.1 Foundations 11.2 Formal Boolean Equivalence Checking 11.3 Functional Formal Verification ? Property Checking 11.4 Summary 11.5 Exercises Chapter 12 Using Formal Verification 12.1 Property Specification Using an HDL Library 12.2 The Property Specification Language PSL 12.3 Property Checking Using Formal Verification 12.4 Summary 12.5 Exercises Part IV: Comprehensive Verification Chapter 13: Completing the Verification Cycle 13.1 Regression 13.2 Problem Tracking 13.3 Tape-Out Readiness 13.4 Escape Analysis 13.5 Summary 13.6 Exercises Chapter 14: Advanced Verification Techniques 14.1 Save verification cycles ? bootstrapping the verification process 14.2 High-Level modeling ? concepts 14.3 Coverage-Directed Generation 14.4 Summary 14.5 Exercises Part V: Case Studies Chapter 15: Case Studies 15.1 The Line Delete Escape 15.2 Branch History Table 15.3 Network Processor 15.4 Summary Glossary References