Posted by frank schirrmeister on November 17, 2010
With the year coming to an end faster than I really can comprehend (have you started on your Christmas wish list yet?), I am looking back to what I said would be important going into 2010. In my Electronic Design column’s forecast “2010 Will Change The Balance In Verification” i suggested that software development would change how verification is done. Well, looking back I can confirm that this is happening, albeit not only the way I had suggested.
I have previously quoted Janick Bergeron, my fellow blogging colleague on verification, that the “solution to the verification problem lies in the design process”. 2010 validates for me that this is really becoming a reality. Simply put, design is changing and one of the main reasons is verification. To enable successful chip and system design while also enabling the different participants in the design chain from IP providers through semiconductor vendors, Integrators to OEM, three components are required. Developers need to be enabled to
The last item is successfully addressed today by virtual platforms and FPGA prototypes, depending at which point of the design flow the project team or their customers decides to require enablement for software developers and verification. The integration aspect is addressed by IP-XACT based tools at the RT-Level (for RTL assembly) and architecture design tools at the transaction-level (to understand bus bandwidth, impact of software mappings into multiple processors etc.). To efficiently enable blocks we have a striving Implementation IP licensing market and various tool options for high-level block design and synthesis, which brings me back to the topic of verification.
The main reason for high-level design of blocks is not a faster path to implementation, better coding efficiency or re-use and connections to system-level models. The main reason for high-level design of blocks is verification!
I have used the picture on the left in a previous post on high-level synthesis already. It shows the various options a user has to implement a block once the idea for a the block is born. The options range from dedicated hardware implementation – read “inflexible” – to full software implementation – ready “flexible”. There are various grades of flexibility in-between.
Especially in consumer applications flexibility has become a key issue today. In order to meet changing standards and to be able to support different versions of algorithms with the the same intent (like en- and de-coding video or audio), mixed hardware/software implementations are very attractive. Two of the implementation options have profound impact on verification and a re worth to be singled out as verification actually seems to be the most important driver for their adoption:
Well, all this happened faster in 2010 as I had expected and is really driven by verification. To close this post and to come back to my original 2010 prediction on verification, I was correct in principle with my prediction. We have more customers using embedded software and directed tests written software for verification of hardware blocks. It is now the second most adopted use model for virtual prototypes (besides early software development). The adoption of high-level design for blocks – custom processors and fixed hardware alike – is further changing the verification dynamic, especially for block verification.
It will be interesting to see how this will play out in 2011. Interesting times!
Patrick Sheridan
Patrick Sheridan is responsible for Synopsys' system-level solution for virtual prototyping. In addition to his responsibilities at Synopsys, from 2005 through 2011 he served as the Executive Director of the Open SystemC Initiative (now part of the Accellera Systems Initiative). Mr. Sheridan has 30 years of experience in the marketing and business development of high technology hardware and software products for Silicon Valley companies.
Malte Doerper
Malte Doerper is responsible for driving the software oriented virtual prototyping business at Synopsys. Today he is based in Mountain View, California. Malte also spent over 7 years in Tokyo, Japan, where he led the customer facing program management practice for the Synopsys system-level products. Malte has over 12 years’ experiences in all aspects of system-level design ranging from research, engineering, product management and business development. Malte joined Synopsys through the CoWare acquisition, before CoWare he worked as researcher at the Institute for Integrated Signal Processing Systems at the Aachen University of Technology, Germany.
Tom De Schutter
Tom De Schutter is responsible for driving the physical prototyping business at Synopsys. He joined Synopsys through the acquisition of CoWare where he was the product marketing manager for transaction-level models. Tom has over 10 years of experience in system-level design through different marketing and engineering roles. Before joining the marketing team he led the transaction-level modeling team at CoWare.