The design effort for complex ASICs has been able to scale linearly by increasing design reuse and adopting a well-architected, platform-based design structure. Unfortunately, functional verification has not benefited directly from this approach. One way to address increased design complexity is to supplement traditional functional verification methods with assertion-based verification (ABV). Today, assertion-based verification (ABV) has been successfully applied at multiple levels of design and verification abstraction—ranging from high-level assertions within transaction-level testbenches down to implementation-level assertions synthesized into emulation and hardware.
With the advent of standardized assertion languages and assertion libraries, the industry has recently witnessed an increased interest in adopting assertion-based techniques. As we help project teams deploy assertion-based verification (ABV), we have observed a number of myths, misunderstandings, and costly mistakes. This Verification Academy course directly addresses these issues by introducing a set of steps for advancing an organization’s assertion-based-verification (ABV) skills, infrastructure, and metrics for measuring success while identifying process areas requiring improvement. Simulation-based assertion-based verification (ABV) methods are used throughout the methodology we introduce. In addition, formal-based assertion-based verification (ABV) techniques are also highlighted for selected verification hotspots. We provide guidelines for balancing the use of formal and simulation with project constraints, such as: available resources, the skill level of the team, design and verification complexity, and schedule limitations.
This Verification Academy course is intended to be highly interactive—allowing the attendee to ask detailed questions concerning developing a successful assertion-based verification (ABV) methodology.
You are encouraged to first view Evolving Verification Capabilities by Harry Foster that provides the framework for all of the Academy courses.