Automated UVM testbench generation

Abstract. This thesis studies the possibilities to automate UVM testbench creation in the telecommunications industry. First, the ideas behind UVM are looked at and automatable parts of the testbench coding process are studied. Facilitating the reuse of code is also examined. Development of an automation script with python for Nokia is covered in the work, and the possibilities for future improvements are discussedAutomatisoitu UVM testipenkin generointi. Tiivistelmä. Tämä kandidaatintyö tutkii mahdollisuuksia automatisoida UVM testipenkin kehitystä tietoliikennetekniikan saralla. Aluksi käydään läpi UVM:n taustaideat ja pohditaan automatisoitavia osia koodausprosessissa. Koodin uudelleenkäytettävyyttä tutkitaan myös tarkasti. Työssä käydään läpi automaatioskriptin kehitys Nokialle pythonilla ja mietitään mahdollisia suuntia jatkokehitykselle

Reusable Automated Agent For Universal Verification Methodology System Testbench

Pre-silicon verification process is an important cog in an application specific integrated chip design cycle. It is considered one of the biggest bottle-neck in modern day design projects. Thus, verification efficiency and productivity has gained a lot of attention lately and will be the driving factor of this research. The purpose of this research is to build a verification solution that actively promotes reusability and interoperability of verification components and improve the automation within the verification solution. These are identified as important concepts to improve verification efficiency and productivity. A state of the art UVM (Universal Verification Methodology) verification solution centered on these concepts is built for the sideband module of a hard memory controller. First, the verification requirements of the sideband module are investigated. Next, existing testbench solutions were evaluated for its reuse capabilities. This is followed by proposing and implementing a testbench architecture that highly reuses existing verification components and be reused friendly itself. Next, the architecture is improved to allow higher level of automation within the testbench. The implemented verification solution is then measured and analysed for its reusability and automation. The result obtained shows the implemented verification solution achieves a reusability of 21.70% in a system level testbench and 49.67% in the standalone sideband verification environment. In addition, the autonomous agent approach implemented in the architecture reduces the test writer's burden by at least 60% and up to 78%

High-Level verification methodology for UVMF-based C++ reference model testbench implementation

Abstract. This thesis was completed for Nokia and in cooperation with Siemens EDA. In this thesis a UVM Predictor component, which wraps a C++ reference model, was generated with UVM Framework (UVMF) and implemented. The Predictor was generated and implemented to Universal Verification Methodology (UVM) testbench that had HLS generated Design Under Test (DUT). First, the UVMF generated Predictor was implemented for the UVM testbench with a small HLS-generated design to learn the verification flow. After the first trial run, the UVMF-generated Predictor was implemented into an existing UVM testbench with a bigger subsystem as a DUT. The subsystem contained two manually written RTLs and one HLS-generated RTL. First, this thesis presents the UVM theory and the UVM technologies that are used in the thesis work. The third chapter introduces code coverage, different coverage metrics, and the coverage metrics used in this thesis. After theory, practical work is presented. Chapter four explains the devices under test, UVM components, testbench connections with a UVM Predictor, Predictor generation, functionality testing, and simulation. Measured coverage metrics, tools, and technologies are also presented. Finally, coverage results from thesis work with testing strategies are presented. The results of coverage closure are discussed in chapter 6, and the thesis is summarized in chapter 7. Applying a UVMF-generated Predictor to the UVM testbench for verification flow showed promising results for obtaining a faster verification process as well as produced the possibility of using various versatile verification techniques with the Predictor, such as stimulus generation with constrained random (CR).Korkeatason verifiointi metodologian testipenkki-implementaatio UVM Framework pohjautuvalla C++ referenssi mallilla. Tiivistelmä. Tämä diplomityö on tehty Nokialle yhteistyössä Siemens EDA:n kanssa. Tässä diplomityössä UVM Framework työkalulla generoitiin ja toteutettiin UVM-prediktori komponentti, joka sisältää C++ referenssimallin. Generoitu prediktori integroitiin universaalin varmennusmenetelmän testipenkkiin, joka sisälsi HLS:llä luodun testattavan suunnitelman. Ensiksi UVMF:llä generoitu prediktori implementoitiin UVM-testipenkkiin pienellä HLS generoidulla alilohkolla, jotta verifiointivuo saatiin opeteltua. Ensimmäisen testivedoksen jälkeen, UVMF generoitu prediktori implementoitiin olemassa olevaan UVM-testipenkkiin, jossa varmennettavan suunnitelmana oli suurempi osajärjestelmä. Osajärjestelmä sisälsi kolme alilohkoa, joista kaksi oli manuaalisesti kirjoitettua RTL:ää ja yksi HLS generoitu RTL. Ensiksi tässä työssä käydään läpi UVM:n teoriaa, sekä käytettävät UVM teknologiat, joita sovelletaan diplomityössä. Kolmas kappale esittelee koodin kattavuutta ja erilaisia kattavuus parametreja. Teoriaosuuden jälkeen esitellään käytännön työn asiat. Kappale 4 esittelee varmennettavat suunnitelmat, UVM komponentit, testipenkkikytkennät prediktorin kanssa, sekä prediktorin generoinnin, testauksen ja simuloinnin. Myös työssä mitattavat kattavuusparametrit, sekä käytettävät työkalut ja teknologiat esitellään. Lopuksi esitellään diplomityössä saavutetut kattavuustulokset, sekä suunnitelmien varmennusstrategiat. Diplomityössä saavutetut tulokset käydään läpi seuraavassa kappaleessa, minkä jälkeen kappaleessa 7 tiivistetään koko diplomityö. UVMF generoidun prediktorin ottaminen mukaan osaksi UVM testipenkin verifiointivuota antoi lupaavia tuloksia verifiointiprosessin nopeuttamiseksi, ja mahdollisuuden käyttää erilaisia monipuolisia verifiointitekniikoita kuten testiherätteiden luontia rajoitetun satunnaisuuden menetelmällä

Development of open verification ip for I2C controller

Before any IC is fabricated it is desired to check whether the required functionalities are preserved or not. Otherwise this may lead to a huge loss to the company in case of any failure in during the design/coding stage. Verification engineers have to make sure that before fabrication all the properties of the IC can be successfully implicated. So functional verification provides a lot of benefits to the IC designers. Today, testing and verification are alternatively used for the same thing. Testing of a large design using FPGA consumes longer compilation time in case of debugging and committing small mistakes. Simulation based testing is faster and also provides capability to check all the signals buried under the design. But due to the increasing complexity in design and the concurrency behavior of the design it has become very difficult to verify the functionality using traditional testbenches. So new languages called Hardware Verification Languages (HVL) are introduced. System Verilog is an IEEE standard Verification language. The library and package oriented feature provide an efficient way of writing testbenches. The Open Verification Methodology (OVM) Class Library provides the building blocks needed to quickly develop reusable and well-constructed verification components and test environments using SystemVerilog. In this paper we have developed testing environment using system Verilog implementation of OVM for I2C controller core. Our work introduces an automated stimulus generating testing environment for the design and checks the functionality of the I2C bus controller

The RD53 Collaboration's SystemVerilog-UVM Simulation Framework and its General Applicability to Design of Advanced Pixel Readout Chips

The foreseen Phase 2 pixel upgrades at the LHC have very challenging requirements for the design of hybrid pixel readout chips. A versatile pixel simulation platform is as an essential development tool for the design, verification and optimization of both the system architecture and the pixel chip building blocks (Intellectual Properties, IPs). This work is focused on the implemented simulation and verification environment named VEPIX53, built using the SystemVerilog language and the Universal Verification Methodology (UVM) class library in the framework of the RD53 Collaboration. The environment supports pixel chips at different levels of description: its reusable components feature the generation of different classes of parameterized input hits to the pixel matrix, monitoring of pixel chip inputs and outputs, conformity checks between predicted and actual outputs and collection of statistics on system performance. The environment has been tested performing a study of shared architectures of the trigger latency buffering section of pixel chips. A fully shared architecture and a distributed one have been described at behavioral level and simulated; the resulting memory occupancy statistics and hit loss rates have subsequently been compared.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figures (11 figure files), submitted to Journal of Instrumentatio

Pre-validation of SoC via hardware and software co-simulation

Abstract. System-on-chips (SoCs) are complex entities consisting of multiple hardware and software components. This complexity presents challenges in their design, verification, and validation. Traditional verification processes often test hardware models in isolation until late in the development cycle. As a result, cooperation between hardware and software development is also limited, slowing down bug detection and fixing. This thesis aims to develop, implement, and evaluate a co-simulation-based pre-validation methodology to address these challenges. The approach allows for the early integration of hardware and software, serving as a natural intermediate step between traditional hardware model verification and full system validation. The co-simulation employs a QEMU CPU emulator linked to a register-transfer level (RTL) hardware model. This setup enables the execution of software components, such as device drivers, on the target instruction set architecture (ISA) alongside cycle-accurate RTL hardware models. The thesis focuses on two primary applications of co-simulation. Firstly, it allows software unit tests to be run in conjunction with hardware models, facilitating early communication between device drivers, low-level software, and hardware components. Secondly, it offers an environment for using software in functional hardware verification. A significant advantage of this approach is the early detection of integration errors. Software unit tests can be executed at the IP block level with actual hardware models, a task previously only possible with costly system-level prototypes. This enables earlier collaboration between software and hardware development teams and smoothens the transition to traditional system-level validation techniques.Järjestelmäpiirin esivalidointi laitteiston ja ohjelmiston yhteissimulaatiolla. Tiivistelmä. Järjestelmäpiirit (SoC) ovat monimutkaisia kokonaisuuksia, jotka koostuvat useista laitteisto- ja ohjelmistokomponenteista. Tämä monimutkaisuus asettaa haasteita niiden suunnittelulle, varmennukselle ja validoinnille. Perinteiset varmennusprosessit testaavat usein laitteistomalleja eristyksissä kehityssyklin loppuvaiheeseen saakka. Tämän myötä myös yhteistyö laitteisto- ja ohjelmistokehityksen välillä on vähäistä, mikä hidastaa virheiden tunnistamista ja korjausta. Tämän diplomityön tavoitteena on kehittää, toteuttaa ja arvioida laitteisto-ohjelmisto-yhteissimulointiin perustuva esivalidointimenetelmä näiden haasteiden ratkaisemiseksi. Menetelmä mahdollistaa laitteiston ja ohjelmiston varhaisen integroinnin, toimien luonnollisena välietappina perinteisen laitteistomallin varmennuksen ja koko järjestelmän validoinnin välillä. Yhteissimulointi käyttää QEMU suoritinemulaattoria, joka on yhdistetty rekisterinsiirtotason (RTL) laitteistomalliin. Tämä mahdollistaa ohjelmistokomponenttien, kuten laiteajureiden, suorittamisen kohdejärjestelmän käskysarja-arkkitehtuurilla (ISA) yhdessä kellosyklitarkkojen RTL laitteistomallien kanssa. Työ keskittyy kahteen yhteissimulaation pääsovellukseen. Ensinnäkin se mahdollistaa ohjelmiston yksikkötestien suorittamisen laitteistomallien kanssa, varmistaen kommunikaation laiteajurien, matalan tason ohjelmiston ja laitteistokomponenttien välillä. Toiseksi se tarjoaa ympäristön ohjelmiston käyttämiseen toiminnallisessa laitteiston varmennuksessa. Merkittävä etu tästä lähestymistavasta on integraatiovirheiden varhainen havaitseminen. Ohjelmiston yksikkötestejä voidaan suorittaa jo IP-lohkon tasolla oikeilla laitteistomalleilla, mikä on aiemmin ollut mahdollista vain kalliilla järjestelmätason prototyypeillä. Tämä mahdollistaa aikaisemman ohjelmisto- ja laitteistokehitystiimien välisen yhteistyön ja helpottaa siirtymistä perinteisiin järjestelmätason validointimenetelmiin

Functional verification of a RISC-V vector accelerator

We present the functional verification efforts for an academic RISC-V based vector accelerator, successfully taped-out in the context of the European Processor Initiative. For our novel RISC-V based decoupled vector accelerator, we built a verification infrastructure consisting of a UVM environment, performing step by step co-simulation of all vector instructions, using the Spike instruction set simulator as a reference model. Furthermore, for validating this complex design connected to a scalar core using a custom interface, we provided automated constrained-random test generation, simulation and error reporting, and CI/CD infrastructure. We found 3005 errors during this process and reached 95.79% functional coverage.This research has received funding from the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (JU) under Framework Partnership Agreement No 800928 (European Processor Initiative) and Specific Grant Agreement No 101036168 (EPI SGA2). The JU receives support from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and from Croatia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. The EPI-SGA2 project, PCI2022-132935 is also co-funded by MCIN/AEI /10.13039/501100011033 and by the UE NextGenerationEU/PRTR.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Hardware Accelerated Functional Verification

Funkční verifikace je jednou z nejrozšířenějších technik ověřování korektnosti hardwarových systémů podle jejich specifikace. S nárůstem složitosti současných systémů se zvyšují i časové požadavky kladené na funkční verifikaci, a proto je důležité hledat nové techniky urychlení tohoto procesu. Teoretická část této práce popisuje základní principy různých verifikačních technik, jako jsou simulace a testování, funkční verifikace, jakož i formální analýzy a verifikace. Následuje popis tvorby verifikačních prostředí nad hardwarovými komponentami v jazyce SystemVerilog. Část věnující se analýze popisuje požadavky kladené na systém pro akceleraci funkční verifikace, z nichž nejdůležitější jsou možnost jednoduchého spuštění akcelerované verze verifikace a časová ekvivalence akcelerovaného a neakcelerovaného běhu verifikace. Práce dále představuje návrh verifikačního rámce používajícího pro akceleraci běhů verifikace technologii programovatelných hradlových polí se zachováním možnosti spuštění běhu verifikace v uživatelsky přívětivém ladicím prostředí simulátoru. Dle experimentů provedených na prototypové implementaci je dosažené zrychlení úměrné počtu ověřovaných transakcí a komplexnosti verifikovaného systému, přičemž nejvyšší zrychlení dosažené v sadě experimentů je více než 130násobné.Functional verification is a widespread technique to check whether a hardware system satisfies a given correctness specification. The complexity of modern computer systems is rapidly rising and the verification process takes a significant amount of time. It is a challenging task to find appropriate acceleration techniques for this process. In this thesis, we describe theoretical principles of different verification approaches such as simulation and testing, functional verification, and formal analysis and verification. In particular, we focus on creating verification environments in the SystemVerilog language. The analysis part describes the requirements on a system for acceleration of functional verification, the most important being the option to easily enable acceleration and time equivalence of an accelerated and a non-accelerated run of a verification. The thesis further introduces a design of a verification framework that exploits the field-programmable gate array technology, while retaining the possibility to run verification in the user-friendly debugging environment of a simulator. According to the experiments carried out on a prototype implementation, the achieved acceleration is proportional to the number of checked transactions and the complexity of the verified system. The maximum acceleration achieved on the set of experiments was over 130 times.

SW-VHDL Co-Verification Environment Using Open Source Tools

The verification of complex digital designs often involves the use of expensive simulators. The present paper proposes an approach to verify a specific family of complex hardware/software systems, whose hardware part, running on an FPGA, communicates with a software counterpart executed on an external processor, such as a user/operator software running on an external PC. The hardware is described in VHDL and the software may be described in any computer language that can be interpreted or compiled into a (Linux) executable file. The presented approach uses open source tools, avoiding expensive license costs and usage restrictions.Unión Europea 68722

The Design and Verification of a Synchronous First-In First-Out (FIFO) Module Using System Verilog Based Universal Verification Methodology (UVM)

With the conventional directed testbench, it is highly improbably to handle verification of current complex Integrated Circuit (IC) designs, because a person has to manually create every test case. The greater the complexity of the designs, the higher the probability of bugs appearing in the code. Increasing complexity of ICs has created a necessity for performing verification on designs with an advanced, automated verification environment. Ideally this would eliminate chip re-spins, minimizing the time required to enable checking of all the design specifications, ensuring 100% functional coverage. This paper deals with the design of Synchronous FIFO using Verilog. A FIFO (First-In-First-Out) is a memory queue, which controls the data flow between two modules. It has control logic embedded with it, which efficiently manages read and write operations. It has the capability to notify the concerned modules regarding its empty status and full status to help ensure no underflow or overflow of data. This FIFO design is classified as synchronous, as clocks control the read and write operations. Both read and write operations happen simultaneously using of Dual port RAM or an array of flip-flops in the design. After designing the Synchronous FIFO, its verification is carried out using the Universal Verification Methodology (UVM). A detailed discussion about the verification plan and test results is included