What is the difference between universal verification component(UVC) and verification intellectual property(VIP)?
In reply to agoel:
Difference between Agent & VIP
UVC: An agent is called a universal verification component(UVC) which is used to verify a DUT(either a master or slave DUT)
VIP: VIP will have a master & slave agent. With the help of VIP, we can verify a master or slave DUT. For example, if we take an AXI VIP, it will have an AXI Master agent & AXI slave agent.
Now suppose if you want to verify an AXI master DUT that has to be connected to one slave component, it can be verified with AXI VIP with the following configuration
AXI Slave agent – ACTIVE AGENT
AXI Master agent – PASSIVE AGENT
No. of slaves -1
No.of masters – 1
Later if you have an AXI master DUT that has to be connected to four slaves has to be verified, still, I can use the same VIP with the following configuration.
AXI Slave agent – ACTIVE AGENT
AXI Master agent – PASSIVE AGENT
No. of slaves -4
No.of masters – 1
Later if you have 4 AXI slave DUT’s that have to be connected to four masters has to be verified, still I can use the same VIP with the following configuration.
AXI Slave agent – PASSIVE AGENT
AXI Master agent – ACTIVE AGENT
No. of slaves -4
No.of masters – 4
Like this, with the help of VIP you can verify either master or slave DUT by changing the configuration of the VIP.
Shanthi V A
In reply to shanthi:
I do not agree. Both terms UVC and VIP are used for the same. It is a component which can be re-used in UVM environments. Sometimes the name VIP is used for UVC you can buy for using it in your UVM environment.
A UVC/VIP consists of a sequencer/driver pair, a monitor and a configuration object. Additionally there might be a coverage collector.
In reply to chr_sue:
This will generate lots of opinions. I agree with both answers, even though they disagree with each other.
I feel VIP is a more general term used for any intellectual property used in verification; whereas a UVC is more attached to a specific methodology (which is actually less universal than it sounds).