Teaching Functional Verification

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Teaching Functional Verification

• Design Automation Conference
• Sunday, June 9, 2002

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Workshop Goals

• Share experiences in teaching functional
  verification
• Initiate collaborative efforts to extend the
  teaching of functional verification
• Expand Computer Engineering curriculums to
  include functional verification

3
Agenda

• Workshop Overview
• Textbook Overviews
• Course Organization and Management
• Lab Exercise Overview
• Automated Testbench Concepts
• Formal Verification and Rulebase

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Why is verification so important to the chip
industry?

• Verification is the single biggest lever to
  effect the triple constraints Schedule, Cost,
  Quality
• Fewer revs through the fabrication process means
  lower costs and faster time-to-market
• Re-spinning a chip costs
• Hundreds of thousands of dollars
• 6-8 weeks
• So if you can get it right in fewer "passes", you
  WIN!!!

5
What Industry Has Found

• The system and chip industry depends on
  functional verification
• Theres a science and methodology behind
  verification
• Verification has a separate career path from
  logic and circuit design

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Course Evolution

• IBM internal class
• Initial 2 day class with 1 lab
• Current 2 week (80 hour) format
• University Partnerships followed initial course

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University Participation

• Penn State, Pittsburgh and North Carolina State
  have completed full semester courses on
  functional verification
• Active class at Ohio State (quarters)
• Theres now a foundation of resources for other
  university professors to build upon

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Notes

• Web address
• http//www.cse.psu.edu/vijay/verify/instructors.h
  tml
• Open to university professors doing verification
  classwork.
• Industry access granted for adding to body of
  knowledge.
• Tool/Vendor specifics
• Universities should take advantage of any current
  vendor agreements they have
• Materials are vendor agnostic
• Simulation engines, Specman, VERA
• Recognition for all slides must be maintained

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Contacts

• Vijay Narayanan, PSU (vijay_at_cse.psu.edu) (Web
  page owner)
• Steve Levitan, Pitt (steve_at_ee.pitt.edu)
• John Goss, NCSU (gossman_at_us.ibm.com)
• Bruce Wile, IBM (bwile_at_us.ibm.com)
• Matthew Morley, Verisitys University
  partnerships (matthew_at_verisity.com
• Yaron Wolfsthal, IBMs Rulebase
  (wolfstal_at_il.ibm.com)
• Janick Bergeron, Qualis Corp, Writing
  Testbenches textbook, Verification Guild
  Newsletter (janick_at_bergeron.com)
• Faisal Haque, Cisco, Art of Verification
  textbook (fhaque_at_cisco.com)

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