As
I write this, I've just returned from the most important conference and tradeshow
of the year for functional verification: DVCon
in San Jose. The "DV" officially stands for "Design and Verification" but most
people think that it means "Design Verification" since the focus has been almost
entirely on functional verification in recent years. This week's conference was
dominated by two big themes -- the brand-new Universal Verification Methodology
(UVM) standard from Accellera and the increasing attention paid to mixed-signal
verification (MSV). I heard several people joke that perhaps DVCon had become "UVMCon"
or "MSVCon" this year.
My
colleague Joe Hupcey has done his usual fine job of documenting DVCon in words
and pictures and I'm sure that there will be lots of other blog posts from our
attendees. I'd like to focus on just a few aspects of the show. First, I have
to say that UVM ruled the day. Accellera approved
the UVM 1.0 standard just last week and then made the UVM library and user's
guide available for download
on the first day of the conference. The
conference opened with an Accellera-sponsored UVM workshop that was packed to
the walls. About 180 attendees heard vendors and users provide insight into the
new standard and its enormous benefits for the industry.
There
were more than a dozen additional talks and panels on the UVM, so clearly it
was the hottest topic. But mixed-signal verification was not far behind. As per
EDA360,
most advanced-node chips will have both analog and digital content, requiring
effective verification of the complete mixed-signal design. There were more
than a half-dozen papers on this topic as well as a Thursday lunch panel
sponsored by Cadence. The panel featured both vendors and users discussing how
digital verification techniques such as planning, assertions and coverage are
making their way into the analog realm as well. The users also described some
of their current and upcoming verification challenges, encouraging the vendors
to lead with solutions.
I
had the pleasure of participating in a "Birds of a Feather" (BoF) discussion on
Monday evening with representations from NextOp, CVC and Breker plus an
animated audience. The topic was "Strategies in Verification for Random Test
Generation" which naturally involved the UVM as well as techniques to expand
beyond the simulation testbench for more effective stimulus generation and
verification coverage. I'll save the
details of that session for my next post since I want to do the topic justice.
I
also spent quite a bit of time on the exhibit floor, which had more buzz than I've
seen in several years at DVCon. There were a bunch of start-ups exhibiting for
the first time and from what I saw they attracted lots of interest. We ran an "EDA360
Passport" promotion in which anyone who visited all of our listed partners was
entered into a prize drawing. That was a lot of fun; another key tenet of
EDA360 is that no one company can do everything and a vibrant ecosystem is
critical. It was nice to recognize our partners and offer attendees an incentive
to visit all of our booths and see a broad view of interlocking verification
solutions.
It
was a really good show, well organized but structured with enough time to talk
to customers, partners, friends and even competitors. I hope to see you all at
DVCon next year!
Tom A.
The truth is out there...sometimes
it's in a blog.