Teaching Functional Verification: Lab Mechanics Design Automation Conference Sunday, June 9, 2002

Agenda Administration Lab 1 Lab 2 Lab 3 Grading

Administration Length of labs Lab 1 – 1 week Lab 2 – 4 weeks Lab 3 – 4-6 weeks Instructor/TA Availability Lab 1 – /office hours Lab 2 – /office hours/1-2 lab days Lab 3 – /office hours/3-4 lab days

Administration (continued) Website with lab specifications Student Message Board Students helping students Monitored/Administrated by Instructor Student Team Sizes Lab 1 – Individual Lab 2 – Individual Lab 3 – Individual or groups of 2 Individual requires more time

Lab 1 Focused on directed type testing Black box approach No visibility into RTL Input to output type tests Bus Functional Models (BFM) provided Students need only to use the BFM ’ s Bugs fixed by setting “ error ” input signal Students hand in bug analysis

Post Lab 1 exercise Discuss deficiencies of lab 1 Specification Directed nature Discuss better approach Pseudo-random stimulus Self-checking Discuss nature of bugs

Lab 2 Build upon lab 1 and lecture material Given starting point reference from solution (better approach) of lab 1 Introduce High Level Verification Languages (HVL ’ s) Grey box approach Provide a testplan from lab 1 Introduce students to debug

Lab 2 (continued) Bug fixes are done by “ forcing ” internal nets If using VHDL, use procedures with FLI calls This reduces instructors maintenance work load on design If using Verilog/HVL, force nets directly Introduce students to “ regression ” Provide ability for students to regress Students hand in testplan and bug analysis

Post Lab 2 exercise Discuss deficiencies of lab 2 When are we done? Coverage Maintenance of code in environment Lab 1 solution not well commented Reuse Discuss nature of bugs Establish Coding guidelines for regression purposes (pass, fail, etc)

Lab 3 Builds upon lab 2 and lecture material Provide lab 2 solution Coverage oriented Provide mechanism for code coverage Provide functional coverage goals Testplan becomes more of a functional coverage plan Same approach as lab 2 for bug fixes and debug Students hand in testplan

Grading Lab 1 Bug analysis Lab 2 Testplan and bug analysis Lab 3 Perform “ escape analysis ” for each group “ Panel ” session What bugs were found What techniques were used Poke holes in environment Ensure environment followed testplan

Grading (continued) Complete bug discovery isn ’ t necessary for “ A ” Testplan Environment Methodology

Summary Each lab builds upon itself Emphasizes reuse and maintenance Labs emphasize lecture material Testplan Pseudo-random Self-checking Regressions Coverage

Summary (continued) Labs are time intensive Students time Instructors time May opt to have some classes as “ lab sessions ” depending on schedule and syllabus