Debugging the complex serial protocols is the biggest challenge verification engineers face. It’s one of the most time and effort consuming activity affecting the schedule of every project. Traditional debug methodologies use a combination of loosely connected waveforms, log files, messages, and documentation, which are insufficient for productive debugging. Debugging SoC and block level issues using log files is tedious and time consuming. Design problems that appear in the later phases of the development cycle can be extremely difficult to track down and debug, thus putting project schedules at risk.
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Posted in Automotive, Debug, Display, Mobile SoC, Type C, USB
In today’s world of smartphones and tablets, high speed data at low power consumption is becoming increasingly important. MIPI M-PHY supports multiple applications with high data bandwidth and low power consumption which makes it a popular specification for mobile devices. Applications like JEDEC UFS 3.0 and MIPI UniPro 1.8 now support MIPI M-PHY 4.1 which provides high speed data at a rate of nearly 11Gbps (HS_G4). To learn more about latest UFS and UniPro specifications read our previous blog “High Speed Memory in Smart Phones: MIPI UniPro v1.8 for JEDEC UFS v3.0”. Data at such a high speed can lead to inter-symbol-interference (ISI). M-PHY provides a safety measure to prevent the loss of data at HS_G4. In this blog, we are going to talk about the ‘ADAPT’ feature and its advantages which were introduced in M-PHY 4.0.
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Posted in Camera, Debug, Flash, Memory, MIPI, Mobile SoC, MPHY, UFS, Unipro
We recently published the VIP Newsletter for Jan 2018, containing trending topics, leading solutions, in depth technical articles, videos, webinars, and updates on next generation protocols. In case you missed the latest buzz on Verification IP, you can read it here.
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Posted in ACE, AMBA, Automotive, AXI, C-PHY, Camera, CHI, CSI, D-PHY, Data Center, DDR, Debug, Flash, Interconnects, LPDDR, Memory, Methodology, MIPI, Mobile SoC, NVMe, PCIe, Processor Subsystems, SPI, Storage, SystemVerilog, Test Suites, Type C, Uncategorized, UVM
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Posted in Data Center, DDR, Debug, DFI, eMMC, events, Flash, HBM, HMC, LPDDR, Memory, ONFi, Storage, UFS
Verifying today’s complex designs is time consuming, as simulations run for long time and millions of transaction are executed. Traditional approach of debug is to dump all the information of millions of packets in a log file, however it would always be challenging to filter out specific transactions from the huge log file. For example, in case of AXI Protocol, a fixed number of outstanding transactions are allowed during simulation, it would always be difficult to find out such outstanding transaction in the huge log file of a single run of simulation or during interactive simulation. It is one of the biggest pain point of debugging.
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Posted in AMBA, Debug, Interconnects
The Design Automation Conference (DAC) 2016 was a great success and here we provide you the highlights of Synopsys’ activities at the event.
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Posted in AMBA, Audio, Automotive, Camera, CAN, Data Center, DDR, Debug, DesignWare, Display, eMMC, Ethernet, Ethernet AVB, Flash, FlexRay, HBM, HMC, Interconnects, Interface Subsystems, LIN, LPDDR, Memory, Methodology, MIPI, Mobile SoC, ONFi, PCIe, Processor Subsystems, Storage, SystemVerilog, Test Suites, UFS, Uncategorized, USB, UVM
The Design Automation Conference (DAC) 2016, in Austin, Texas kicks off next week starting June 5th to June 9th. As the leading and longest-running annual design and verification event, DAC is the premier place to network with fellow design and verification engineers.
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Posted in Audio, Automotive, Camera, Data Center, Debug, DesignWare, Display, Ethernet, Interface Subsystems, Methodology, Mobile SoC, PCIe, Processor Subsystems, Storage, Success Stories, SystemVerilog, Test Suites, Uncategorized, UVM
Synopsys VC VIP provides Verdi Protocol Analyzer, a protocol and memory aware debug environment . In my previous blog Debugging Memory Protocols with the Verdi Protocol Analyzer, I discussed the value add for using the Verdi Protocol Analyzer to debug memory protocols easily and efficiently. Also, I described how easy it is to look at a specific command as a transaction rather than as interpreted signals. In this blog I’m going to show another feature that makes Verdi Protocol Analyzer the tool of choice for debugging memory protocol issues and for validating proper system behavior. Furthermore, the tool can be used for verification of the command sequencer and the interaction between the DUT and the memory models. The feature, we are going to look at today, is synchronizing transactions to the corresponding signals.
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Posted in DDR, Debug, DFI, Flash, HBM, HMC, LPDDR, Memory, Uncategorized
I ended my last blog post with a more-or-less complete NVMe VIP test-case example, trying to show everything from basic setup to doing an NVM Write followed by a Read. We are going to change gears a bit here, moving from the NVMe commands to some of the VIP features that are available to assist in your testing.
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Posted in Debug, NVMe, PCIe
Debug continues to be one of the biggest hurdles faced by design and verification engineers. While designing a system that requires close interactions with memories, engineers often rely on print statements or waveform viewers to decipher signal behaviors over time, and/or their relationship relative to other signals over time. While this kind of ad-hoc debugging helps in understanding the behavior of a single signal, it does not work well when debugging protocols.
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Posted in DDR, Debug
