Set up strong methodology teams to create better verification infrastructure: Synopsys

This is the third installment on verification, now, taken up by Synopsys. Regarding the biggest verification mistakes today, Arindam Ghosh, director – Global Technical Services, Synopsys India, attributed these as:

* Spending no time on verification planning (not documenting what needs to be verified) and focusing more on running simulations or on execution.

* No or very low investment in building better verification environments (based on best/new methodologies and best practices); instead maintaining older verification environments.

* Compromising on verification completeness because of tape out pressures and time-to-market considerations.

Would you agree that many companies STILL do not know how to verify a chip?

It could be true for smaller companies or start-ups, but most of the major semiconductor design engineers know about the better approaches/methodologies to verify their chips. However, they may not be investing in implementing the new methodologies for multiple reasons and may instead continue to follow the traditional flows.

How are companies trying to address those? One way to address these mistakes would be to set up strong methodology teams to create a better verification infrastructure for future chips. However, few companies are doing this.

Are companies realizing this and building an infrastructure that gets you business advantage? According to him, some companies do realize this and are investing in building a better infrastructure (in terms of better methodology and flows) for verification.

When should good verification start -- after design; as you are designing and architecting your design environment?

He said that good verification starts as soon as we start designing and architecting the design. Verification leads should start discussing the verification environment components with the lead architect and also start writing the verification plan.

Are folks mistaking by looking at tools and not at the verification process itself? He noted that tools play a major role in the effectiveness of any verification process, but we still see a lot of scope in methodology improvements beyond the tools.

What all needs to get into verification planning as the ‘right’ verification path is fraught with complexities? As per Ghosh, there is not a single full-proof recipe for a ‘right’ verification path. It depends on multiple factors, including whether the design is a new product or derivative, the design application etc. But yes, it is very important to do comprehensive verification planning before starting the verification process.

How is Synopsys addressing this? Synopsys is said to be building a comprehensive, unified and integrated verification environment is required for today’s revolutionary SoCs and would offer a fundamental shift forward in productivity, performance, capacity and functionality.

Synopsys’ Verification Compiler provides the software capabilities, technology, methodologies and VIP required for the functional verification of advanced SoC designs in one solution.

Verification Compiler includes:

* Better capacity and compile and runtime performance.
* Next-generation static and formal technology delivering performance improvement and the capacity to analyze a complete SoC (Property checking, LP, CDC, connectivity).
* Comprehensive low power verification solution.
* Verification planning and management.
* Next-generation verification IP and a deep integration between VIP and the simulation engine, which in turn can greatly improve productivity.  The constraint engine is tuned for optimal performance with its VIP library. It has integrated debug solutions for VIP so one can do protocol-level analysis and transaction-based analysis with the rest of the testbench.
* Support for industry standard verification methodologies.
* X-propagation simulation with both RTL and low power simulations.
* Common debug platform with better debug technology having new capabilities, tight integrations with simulation, emulation, testbench, transaction debug, power-aware debug , hw/sw debug, formal, VIP and coverage.

Top verification recommendations
What would be Synopsys' top five recommendations for verification?

* Spend a meaningful amount of time and effort on verification planning before execution.

* Continuously invest in building a better verification infrastructure and methodologies across the company for better productivity.

* Collaborate with EDA companies to develop, evaluate and deploy new technologies and flows, which can bring more productivity to verification processes.

* Nurture fresh talent through regular on and off-the-job trainings (on flows, methodologies, tools, technology).

* Conduct regular reviews of the completed verification projects with the goal of trying to improve the verification process after every tapeout through methodology enhancements.