The need for verification management

Project management and automation are quickly becoming the most critical elements of the design and verification process. The key ingredients are good specification development and metric-based checkpoints. The ability to "begin with the end in mind" allows for optimal resource usage, much higher design quality and realistic schedule estimates for customers.

Today's design and verification flows often miss cross-functional problems. The flows tend to focus primarily on individual tasks, engine performance or languages, rather than on defining the entire verification challenge or team interdependencies. In fact, most verification plans are merely a set of incomplete discussion notes that atrophy as the project moves forward.

Good management of the design and verification process starts with specific goals that focus on what needs to be verified. Using those guidelines, an experienced verification team can develop and implement a plan that includes everything. Stakeholders can capture and review the verification plan to drive the design safely and smoothly to closure.

Successful verification management requires good analysis of the specification, an awareness of the scope of the job at hand, and a firm decision on what coverage models and metrics to track. Here are some of the basic do's and don'ts to keep in mind.

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