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Using Vera is like Speaking Sumerian – Who’s Left to Understand?

By Adam Sherer on September 30, 2009Comments(2)Filed under: Functional Verification, OVM, SystemVerilog, IES, e, VMM, RVM, Vera

Just like natural languages, non-standard verification languages can fade away.  Sure, ancient Sumerian exists in the Code of Hammurabi, but all modern law is written in living languages.  Similarly, verification environments and VIP still exist in Vera, but a shrinking population understands and uses it.  To preserve the investment, that code base need to be both translated into a standard language like SystemVerilog (IEEE 1800) and/or e (IEEE 1647).

But how?  One obvious path is to hire a service provider.  A number of excellent choices are list on the OVM World website on the partner pages. Of course, you could also just do it yourself.  Regardless of who does the work, translation tools can be a great help.

"But Mr. Sherilog, we all know translation tools are incomplete."  Right you are disembodied voice of every engineer who's tried this.  True, but think of the workload.  If you could get a tool to do 95% of the grunt work, you could concentrate on the remaining code and get the work done in a reasonable time.  Furthermore, it's only worth the effort if the language is a dead end.  With a completely different set of keywords and semantics, Vera is neither standard nor SystemVerilog so translation is worth the pain.  Translation makes technical and business sense.

One application we've seen our customers use is the Vera2SV script posted at http://www.findthecat.com/vera2sv/.  True, the script also targets VMM, but that is to be expected as the methodology used with Vera was RVM, the predecessor to VMM.   Our customers have looked at several translation paths and have had success with this one.  The next step is to use the Accellera VIP TSC best practices to encapsulate the translated code so that it can work with OVM including the VIP portfolio from Cadence.  You can find the code to enable the interoperability on the OVMWorld site.  If you are interested in having the script target OVM directly, feel free to post your comments here or directly to the authors on the script.

To all of our Vera users: "se udnamekam" or "live in the future!" 

 =Adam Sherilog

Comments(2)

By Jay Jue on October 6, 2009
I think if VERA is enough for my project, and the tool support is very good. Why should I change it into systemverilog?

By Adam Sherilog on October 7, 2009
Hi Jay,
The main reason to change would be the lower costs and higher productivity that comes from the larger ecosystem of EDA providers, VIP vendors, and  system integrators.  You get this with SystemVerilog (and SystemC and e) because it's a standard, while Vera is proprietary to a single provider.
With that said, I can't argue with the support you have received.  I'm just suggesting you may want to consider how that decision unfolds one, two, or three down the line given the industry momentum.
=Adam

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