A revolution in functional verification

URL: http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=204701843
 

Exhaustive functional coverage promises to revolutionize the design of ICs and other digital systems. Exhaustive coverage is now a genuine possibility because the scientific and mathematical foundation for measuring functional space objectively has been revealed.

Mushy concepts like "features" and "functionality" no longer serve designers. These concepts can be useful for thinking about the capabilities of a design, but they don't lend themselves to objective enumeration by software in the way commercial extraction tools discover and exhaustively enumerate timing paths. Engineers enumerate features, and two different teams of engineers are unlikely to produce two identical lists of features for an identical design.

Now it's possible to turn to the science of functional verification to achieve superior results.

The science of functional verification applies to any digital hardware system, regardless of size or complexity. It enables designers to engineer a verification solution that completely addresses the design as defined in the specifications.