TransEDA Expands the Value of Coverage with New VN-Spec Specification Coverage Tool

– TransEDA, a leader in coverage and ready-to-use verification solutions for electronic designs, today announces the availability of the company's new VN-Spec Specification Coverage and Impact Analysis Solution. VN-Spec's introduction results from the synergy of TransEDA's advanced Coverage Products and TNI-Valiosys' innovative Technologies, and expands the value of coverage with specification coverage. VN-Spec will be demonstrated at DAC 2004.

"For the first time, with the introduction of VN-Spec, we are extending the scope of TransEDA's New Dimensions in Coverage to the specification domain.", says Jean-Luc Bouvresse, C.E.O. of TransEDA. "Our customers can now start their coverage-driven verification earlier, at the specification level, to verify that their designs meet the initial specifications. VN-Spec enables designers to focus the verification effort on their customers' requirements and in this way augments their confidence in the quality of their SoC designs."

Today, there is a gap in front-end verification methodology as most engineering efforts focus on checking implementation refinements against the first model written at system or HDL level, rather than against the initial specifications. VN-Spec fills this gap by unambiguously identifying requirements in the specification documents, and then tracking the coverage of these requirements throughout the entire implementation and verification process.

VN-Spec Specification Coverage tool

VN-Spec brings higher confidence in both the design completeness and the verification flow quality, enabling designers to better control the progress of their work. In addition, VN-Spec's automatic report generation capability saves time that is usually spent in document creation and project status reporting. Engineers can therefore focus more on design and verification tasks.

Deploying VN-Spec early in the design flow gives project managers a deeper knowledge of the exact status of their project at any time. Through requirements tracing, they can visualize at a glance what has been implemented, what is covered by the test plan, what is verified by test benches or by assertions, etc. VN-Spec also helps them to evaluate the impact of changes in the specification as well as during the implementation and test stages by pointing out the effect of requirements addition, deletion or modification.

To extend Specification Coverage even further, at the system level, where high level requirements are usually defined, VN-Spec works seamlessly across hardware and software development flows. VN-Spec's Expansion Pack augments the tool's capabilities by providing access to software development languages and tool interfaces. Hence Systems Engineers can trace requirements and perform impact analysis throughout the entire hardware design and software development processes.

"VN-Spec's underlying requirement traceability technology has been deployed for several years in software development flows by major companies from Aeronautics, Defense and Automobile industries.", continues Jean-Luc Bouvresse. "These customers have consistently found that the return on investment begins with the first report generation early in the project, while they gain huge advantages in productivity, team work and customer confidence. With VN-Spec, we have migrated this technology into the hardware design world, to bring our customers the same best practices as those already used on numerous large-scale safety-critical development projects, where requirement traceability is required by corporate and certification processes."

About VN-Spec

VN-Spec is a Specification Coverage and Impact Analysis solution that links design and verification flows to initial specification documents. VN-Spec brings a solid methodology for requirement management to project teams that need to get a more thorough vision of their SoC flow. In addition, the tool provides immediate feedback on the effect of any requirement modification.

VN-Spec is lightweight, fast-to-deploy and seamlessly integrates into any existing design flow, even in projects that have already started. The tool can automatically create virtually all kinds of reports and documents related to requirements. Reports are user-customizable through a simple template file; and can therefore match customers' documentation methodology or report forms.

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