TOPICS

Course materials
Course fees include fully indexed course notes providing you with a complete reference manual.
A Workbook with all lab exercises and example solutions is included.
The source code for the lab exercises will also be provided.

Structure & Content
Introduction
Motivation • Cost of Bugs • Terminology • The Design Process • The Verification Process • Observability • Controllability • Verification Levels

Verification Planning
Importance of Planning • Specifications • Feature Extraction • Identifying Corner Cases • Targets and Metrics • Unit and System-Level Verification Planning

Directed Testing
Verification Tools and Languages • Basics of Testbenches • Driving and Checking • Limitations

When is verification done?
Sign-off Criteria • Comprehensive Code Coverage • Functional Coverage • Combining Coverage Models • The Coverage Closure Challenge • Regressions • Verification Management

Constrained Random Generation
Motivation • Coverage with a focus on Functional Coverage • Testbench Automation • Modern Testbench Structure • Transactors • Coverage-driven Verification

Advanced Checking
How to predict expected results • Advanced Checkers • Reference Models • Self-checking Testbenches • Monitors • Scoreboards • Coherency

Assertion-Based Verification
Terminology • Use • Temporal Properties • Property Formalization • Simulation with Assertions • Observability • Assertion Coverage • Property Re-use

System-Level Verification
Architecture of the top-level Testbench • Top-Level Testing • Controllability and Observability • Advanced Constrained Random Techniques • Configurations • Warm Loading • System-Level Properties and Assertions • System-Level Debug • Coverage above Unit Level • Power-Aware Verification • Accelleration • Validation • Performance Verification • Quality of Service

Verification Flow
Specification • Plan • Verification Environment • Debug • Regression • Escape Analysis • Re-use • Advanced Verification Methodologies • Verification Review

Foundations of Formal Verification
Motivation • Terminology • Formal Property Checking • Developing Properties • Safety, Liveness and Invariant Properties • Environment and Assumptions • Interpreting the Outcome of Formal Property Checking • Coverage • Benefits and Strengths of Formal Verification

Advanced Formal Verification
Bug Hunting • Bug Absence • Bug Analysis • Checking Bug Fixes • Coverage Closure • X-Propagation • Advanced Property Specification and Capture • Strategies for Coping with Complexity • Bounded Proof • Bug Avoidance • Finding Invariants • Property Re-use and libraries.