OVM Cookbook (like what AVM has/had)

OVM
1

First proper poster! Woohoo! :p

Anyway, will there be a cookbook with OVM like what Mentor had with AVM i.e. something that explains the reasoning behind the methodology used etc?

2

First proper poster! Woohoo! :p

You beat me by minutes, congratulations!

Ajeetha, CVC
www.noveldv.com

3

You’ll get the Reference guide with the kit that you can download here. Or you can download just the Reference pdf from the download section here.

George

4

You’ll get the Reference guide with the kit that you can download here.

It looks like the OVM Reference guide doesn’t have the philosophy/tutorial content that the AVM manual had. That’s fine, but what is the path for ramping up? Is there a companion manual? OVM for dummies?

5

Tzar & Sampsont-

(FYI I’m an employee of Cadence).

There are some examples in the download materials, but a ‘philosophy/tutorial’ document is a good idea. Mentor and Cadence have existing user guides
for AVM and URM that remain applicable for OVM (due to OVM’s high compatibility with AVM and URM). Mentor and Cadence are also planning to jointly release additional documentation and examples for OVM. Also, we know that several of the OVM partners are planning training and tutorial materials so stay tuned, more is on the way!

Thanks
Stuart

6

Stuart,

Thanks for your quick answer. I’ll be sure to check these out. I usually look for “Getting Started” guides, but that’s a personal preference.

Sincerely,

William

7

Hello All,
To Start with I have really like to Compliment Cadence and Mentor to come up with a Open source Methodology in System Verilog for Verification. This gives a good starting point for people like me who work in time Crunch schedules where we don’t have time to come up with our own environment. I have been following Mentors AVM and hope this OVM will also progress in same way. The examples in ovm-1.0 looks elaborate . I ran couple of them on Questa Platform.
I guess this is the way to Go
One question i have in mind , does Mentor further develop AVM or stop with AVM3.0 ?.

cheers
Sarath

8

I guess this is the way to Go
One question i have in mind , does Mentor further develop AVM or stop with AVM3.0 ?

Hi Sarath,


Thank you for your kind words about OVM. Our view has always been that the OVM is the next logical step in AVM development. So, n

ew testbench features will be developed collaboratively with Cadence and put into OVM.



As for AVM, we will continue to support AVM-3.0 for the foreseeable future. This support will include bug fixes and ongoing support for future releases of Questa.

9

Hi Sarath,


Thank you for your kind words about OVM. Our view has always been that the OVM is the next logical step in AVM development. So, n

ew testbench features will be developed collaboratively with Cadence and put into OVM.


As for AVM, we will continue to support AVM-3.0 for the foreseeable future. This support will include bug fixes and ongoing support for future releases of Questa.

Any plans to back-port any of the OVM features for people who may not want to migrate their recently created AVM3.0 environments to OVM? Also, will there be any whitepapers or other documentation on migration strategies? It looks like it will be relatively painless - though, of course, that depends on one’s tolerance for pain ;)

Paul.
Director of Verification
XtremeEDA Corporation, Ottawa
http://www.xtreme-eda.com

10

Any plans to back-port any of the OVM features for people who may not want to migrate their recently created AVM3.0 environments to OVM? Also, will there be any whitepapers or other documentation on migration strategies? It looks like it will be relatively painless…

Hi Paul,
The OVM is already backward-compatible with AVM3.0, by design. It is also backward compatible with URM6.2.

AVM users can run their existing AVM3.0 code, without modification, using the OVM library by simply telling the compiler to pick up the compatibility package:

% vlog +incdir+$OVM_ROOT/src $OVM_ROOT/src/compatibility/avm_pkg.sv -f your_files.f

A similar compatibility layer is included for URM users.

Of course, we will be providing more documentation as we move forward.

Thanks,

11

Any plans to back-port any of the OVM features for people who may not want to migrate their recently created AVM3.0 environments to OVM? Also, will there be any whitepapers or other documentation on migration strategies? It looks like it will be relatively painless - though, of course, that depends on one’s tolerance for pain ;)

Yes, I am missing a migration guide, like from avm 2.0 to 3.0. (Although that omitted one or two fairly important points.)

One thing to note: I saw that the ovm contains both an avm_pkg.sv and an ovm_pkg.sv (in the compatibility dir). They include the same svh file, so are identical and it doesn’t matter which one one uses. Don’t use both, though, as this will result in incompatible types and the like which are difficult to debug. (A DR has been logged for Questa to enhance the error message.)

12

One thing to note: I saw that the ovm contains both an avm_pkg.sv and an ovm_pkg.sv (in the compatibility dir). They include the same svh file, so are identical and it doesn’t matter which one one uses.

Hi Gunther,
Yes, both packages include the same .svh file, but the key difference is that, in the avm_pkg.sv file (which is the one in the compatibility dir), the package name is actually
avm_pkg
, which is what allows you to use your existing AVM3.0 code unmodified. You don’t even have to change your import statements.

Again, similar compatibility features exist for URM as well.

So, there really are no “porting” requirements to move AVM code from the AVM3.0 library to the OVM library. Stay tuned for a “Migration Guide” that will talk about how to add OVM functionality to existing AVM code.

13

Stuart,

While AVM cookbook is pretty easy to find, I couldn’t locate URM documentation.

From the diagram in the white paper, I could see that stuff on sequences has been taken from URM.

Can you please point me to a link where I could find URM?

Thanks,

Srishan.

14

Stuart,
While AVM cookbook is pretty easy to find, I couldn’t locate URM documentation.
From the diagram in the white paper, I could see that stuff on sequences has been taken from URM.
Can you please point me to a link where I could find URM?

Me too, sequences look quite interesting and I think it would likely be alot easier to figure them out with the URM manual in hand :)

15

All-

To get more information about URM you can access the links at the bottom of the following page:

http://www.cadence.com/plantoclosure/index.aspx

(To get full access to the information you need to be a Cadence customer currently.)

-Stuart

16

Stuart,
While AVM cookbook is pretty easy to find, I couldn’t locate URM documentation.
From the diagram in the white paper, I could see that stuff on sequences has been taken from URM.
Can you please point me to a link where I could find URM?
Thanks,
Srishan.

Today (august 2009), the AVM cookbook seems to be “pretty hard” to find. Someone can point me to a downloadable copy of the AVM cookbook 3.0?
Thanks in advance.
Gastón.

17

The AVM cookbook and examples are still available at http://supportnet.mentor.com/downloads/related/vm-kits/index.cfm for Mentor customers.

18

The AVM cookbook and examples are still available at http://supportnet.mentor.com/downloads/related/vm-kits/index.cfm for Mentor customers.

Hi Dave. Very thanks for your quick reply!
Gastón.