Blog

SystemC 2011 Standard Published

Posted Jan 16, 2012, by Dennis Brophy

IEEE Std. 1666™-2011 Available as Free Download In November 2011 I blogged the IEEE Standards Association (SA) approved a revision to the popular SystemC standard, known officially as IEEE Std. 1666™-2011.  One of the key elements of this standard includes the addition of Transaction Level Modeling (TLM).  I pointed to several online resources to learn more about the revised SystemC standard in that … Read More

Tags: 1666-2011, IEEE, 1666-2005, TLM, Standards, SystemC

Verification solutions that help reduce bug cost

Posted Jan 8, 2012, by Harry Foster

I think very few engineers would argue with the claim that the longer a bug goes undetected, the more expensive it is to fix. In fact, the general rule-of-thumb is that the cost to fix a bug increases by an order of magnitude as a project progresses from one milestone to the next. Bugs found before simulation obviously have the lowest cost. Bugs found at block or subsystem simulation are generally easier … Read More

Instant Replay for Debugging SoC Level Simulations

Posted Dec 13, 2011, by Mark Olen

Instant Replay Offers Multiple Views at Any Speed If you’ve watched any professional sporting event on television lately, you’ve seen the pressure put on referees and umpires.  They have to make split-second decisions in real-time, having viewed ultra-high-speed action just a single time.  But watching at home on television, we get the luxury of viewing multiple replays of events in question … Read More

Tags: Verification, testbench, Cortex, Functional Verification, ARM, SoC Level Verification, Software as a Testbench, Simulation, SoC

2011 IEEE Design Automation Standards Awards

Posted Dec 5, 2011, by Dennis Brophy

The DASC Participates in IEEE Standards Association Gala Event The IEEE Computer Society Design Automation Standards Committee (DASC) participated in the annual IEEE Standards Association (SA) Award ceremony held in New Brunswick, NJ USA  on 4 December 2011.  Hundreds met to recognize the work of thousands who volunteer daily to develop standards and to honor the few who are exceptional examples. The … Read More

Overridden with Overrides

Posted Nov 22, 2011, by Dave Rich

The word override is heavily overloaded in object oriented programming. This concept can make object-oriented programming very difficult to understand. Ironically, the very concept of object-oriented programming came from a simulation language called “Simula” in the 1960′s. Both Verilog and C++ are descendants of this language, but took different paths along the way to represent objects. In … Read More

Tags: SystemVerilog

Getting started with the UVM – Using the Register Modeling package

Posted Nov 11, 2011, by Dave Rich

Adopting SystemVerilog can be challenging to some, and learning the UVM at the same time might seem overwhelming. There is no getting over the fact that if you are going to develop any reasonably sized testbench in SystemVerilog, you need to learn how to declare and construct a class. You also need to learn a few Object-Oriented programming principals so you can extend a UVM class into something for … Read More

Tags: UVM, Verification Methodology, SystemVerilog

TLM Becomes an IEEE Standard

Posted Nov 10, 2011, by Dennis Brophy

IEEE Announces Revision to IEEE 1666™ – Adds Transaction-Level Modeling Support A significant step forward to address standards for advanced system-on-chip (SoC) designs has taken place by the IEEE.  The IEEE announced the new revision of the SystemC standard, known as IEEE 1666™-2011, has been approved.  While it is a revision of the current SystemC standard, IEEE 1666™-2005, the major new feature … Read More

Tags: SystemVerilog, SystemC, TLM, 1800, Accellera, 1666, OVM, TLM 1.0, TLM 2.0, Standards, IEEE-SA, UVM, OSCI, Verification Academy

Be afraid, be very afraid

Posted Oct 31, 2011, by Russ Klein

For Halloween this year I’ll be blogging a real horror story.  And when I say “real”, I mean real – everything you are about to read is the truth.  Not some Spielberg made up scary stuff.  Knowing that it’s real makes it just a bit scarier.  I’ve obfuscated some details to protect the identity of both the innocent and the guilty. It all started some months ago, I was getting off a train in a European … Read More

Worlds Standards Day 2011

Posted Oct 13, 2011, by Dennis Brophy

Creating Confidence Globally Today, 14 October 2011, is the day the world celebrates standards.  The leadership of the IEC, ISO and ITU issued a message in support of it that clearly articulates the role standards play in safety, reliability, interoperability, their impact on business efficiency and more. And from time-to-time, I have had the opportunity to join the celebration the American National … Read More

VHS or Betamax?

Posted Oct 13, 2011, by Dennis Brophy

Legacy’s Luster Lost As a follow-on to my last blog, where I shared information about Harry Foster speaking live about the research he has been reporting on the last year and where I noted legacy might hold some back, I was going to finish on some of the work we have done at Mentor Graphics to move forward while trying to keep some of those held back by legacy, whole. Buy why this title?  For some, … Read More

Tags: VHS, Verification, VIP-TSC, betamax, e, Accellera, SystemVerilog, UVM, OVM, Standards