| |
 | |  | | | | | The Challenge is no longer the design, it is the verification
Commentary by Tom Paulson
QLogic Corporation | |
| |  | |  |
I was brainstorming yesterday with some Verification forum moderators and I raised the idea that our challenge is no longer about the design, it's about the verification. I think the overall idea I was attempting to get to was something I think is happening to design projects, and I know it is happening to ours, and that is:
Our HDL design languages are getting better and better, and allowing design engineers to create pretty complex designs very easily. Easily meaning with very few lines of HDL code to describe the design.
The silicon has advanced to a point where very large designs 5-25 million gates can fit, and this can be accomplished in almost a routine fashion.
So who then is going to verify these complex designs, and what tools are going to make that happen?????????
So, I know our design engineers are finishing their designs, and they are verifying their design units, but they are done in pretty much 6-8 months. When we get the released designs we are now tasked with verifying the system with all its complexities. What is different today, and will get even worse as times moves on, is the complexities of the designs. In the past there was some limiting of features because the resulting designs could not fit on silicon. But today silicon is not necessarily a limiting factor. So again the question is: "How do we verify the systems????".
I hope this makes some sense, and it would be interesting to see if others see this same situation. In any case some food for thought.
One other indicator of this is what we see today in consumer products, such as iPod, cell phones, and others. These consumer products have many more features and capabilities than just a few years ago. Again it is the same premise: better design languages and larger designs on silicon, has allowed these products to grow in complexity. This is something everyone can relate to…tiny iPods with thousands of songs or more, cell phones, blackberry's...
| |
This content has been rated 3 out of 5 by other users |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|