Achieving protocol compliance is often an important part of SOC verification. To help you reach compliance, many protocols have associated compliance checklists. While completing such checklists is valuable, checking all the boxes does not guarantee that the design is truly protocol compliant, much less ensuring that the device is fully verified.

For example, to truly achieve PCI Express compliance requires that you go beyond the checklist. It requires that (a) an implementation of the checks be provided; (b) closure for each check is calibrated up front (completeness metrics must be provided for each); and (c) an automatic reporting mechanism must be in place.

These are the essential aspects of End-to-End VIP and are necessary to answer the key compliance questions:

• What compliance items have not been verified?
• Have all scenarios described by a particular compliance item been covered?
• Will the standard test cases verify the functional customizations specific to the application?
• Can you provide a progress report to your manager and other teams?

Let's examine a PCI Express Transaction Layer check to exemplify the shortcomings of checklists. TXN.2.21#19 states that "Completions headers must supply the same values for the Requester ID, Tag, Attribute and Traffic Class as were supplied in the header of the corresponding request." Figure 3 below identifies what the checklist does not provide and what you'd need to supply.

End-to-End VIP supplies the implementation, the completeness criteria, the coverage, and the reporting mechanisms for you throughout all phases of the verification process. This saves you time and, since it is pre-validated, lets you avoid the problems associated with first-time-used software.

For example, a universal verification component provides assertions to check the validity of the data and a functional coverage mechanism to track all the values that have and have not been generated by the DUT. Pairing this infrastructure with the supplied verification plan provides up-to-the-minute reporting on the completeness of any/all compliance checks and the overall verification goals. See the completeness reporting example in Figure 4 below.

Conclusion
 

The need for planning and reuse in SOC projects has exploded along with their skyrocketing complexity. This has made the new standard of End-to-End VIP a critical component of project success.

To achieve your overall verification goals and manage the risks inherent in complex SOC and IP development projects, End-to-End VIP, also known as universal verification components, should meet these requirements:

• Automatically generate context-sensitive stimulus
• Provide a plan and metrics to automatically manage and report on closure status
• Ensure reusability from Block to Chip To System Level
• Fully calibrate, measure and report on compliance completeness, and
• Fully span the verification process and all verification engines.

With End-to-End VIP, a complete block to system level verification process, and a proven verification methodology, design/verification teams can achieve their quality, predictability, timeliness and efficiency goals.

Pete Heller is Cadence's Product Line Manager for Verification IP. He began marketing VIP at Verisity over four years ago and now manages Cadence's full end-to-end VIP family. He has been in EDA marketing for over 10 years.

Erez Kovshi is Cadence's Engineering Manager for PCI Express Verification IP. He's been creating random and coverage driven verification IP for over six years. His expertise in e, Specman, vManager and advanced verification technologies is key to Cadence's Verification IP development.

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