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Synopsys SoC Verification Kit ¨C Delivering Out-of-the-box SoC Verification Solution

Varun Agrawal

Jun 18, 2024 / 3 min read

Introduction

The Synopsys Global User Survey 2023 found that functionality between IP blocks, and failure to sanitize upward functional specification changes in the IP, contributed to 42% of the reasons for silicon re-spins. Today, more than 77% of users spend more than 1 month per IP to build and bring-up their sub-system/SoC setups, which allow them to verify IP-to-IP functionality and sanitize subsequent IP drops in their SoCs.

SoC verification kits (SVKs) help accelerate subsystem/SoC verification by providing out-of-the-box IP-VIP-91³Ô¹ÏÍø setups, configured for customer-bought Synopsys IP configurations with scalable UVM or C Testbenches and pre-built sanity test cases. SVKs are customized for various IPs, reducing over-all complex IP configurations, validation, environment creation, and sanity by over 50% so that the design teams can focus their efforts on verifying their key design deliverables.

Key Highlights

  • 42% of the reasons or silicon re-spins can be attributed to IP-to-IP functionality and IP sanity for changing specification
  • Customers spend over 1 month per IP to create subsystem/SoC Verification setups to sanitize IP and verify IP-to-IP functionality
  • SVKs, which are out-of-the-box IP-VIP-91³Ô¹ÏÍø setups configured for customer-bought Synopsys IP with scalable UVM or C Testbenches and pre-built sanity test cases, can reduce SoC Verification environment effort by over 50%

Each SVK is tailored for various configurations of Synopsys IP and execution is tied to the expected outcomes and use case requirement. This is meant to accelerate IP bring-up and data flow testing using Synopsys Verification Ips (VIP). It will also help to speed-up user¡¯s testbench development and lowers integration testing risk.

Why are SVKs Important?

More and more designs today are reusing 3rd party IPs to create their specialized SoCs. Custom configurations and system level use of these IPs with optimized HW-SW interaction drive differentiation in user SoCs. IP bring-up and sanity in subsystem and SoCs is key to quickly verifying the system objective to meet tape out goals.
Each IP bring up has unique set of challenges associated with IP configurations, combination of RTL components, integration of verification components (Verification IPs (VIP), Transactors/Memory Models and System 91³Ô¹ÏÍø), and software bring up at each layer. Protocol and system expertise is key in achieving IP bring-up efficiently. These challenges are compounded with complex protocols such as CXL, PCIe, UCIe, Ethernet and USB.
 

SVK block diagram

Almost all 3rd party IP today comes with a throw-away Verilog or C testbenche, with a very limited objective to showing the life in the purchased IP. Architecture of these testbenches is inconsistent between IPs and every IP team uses their own ways to achieve individual IP sanity goals. These test benches require the stripping away and recreation of a completely new verification environment when integrating IPs to SoCs to meet validation and integration sanity objectives. The process of stripping the stock testbench and creating the whole verification setup consumes a lot of time, which essentially is the time eaten away from the verification budget and impacts tape out milestones. More importantly the teams involved in creating these verification setups are different from IP level teams and lack protocol expertise on these IPs and have limited knowledge in configuring these IPs into SoC setups.

Stand-alone IPs and VIPs, support wide range of protocol configurations with expansive test scenarios. User must develop product understanding, protocol expertise, and integration know-how before configuring and validating specific IP configuration and choose from the pool of testcases provided through VIPs to target specific verification requirements.

SoC verification kits leverage expertise and solutions from Synopsys IP and Synopsys VIP teams to provide ready-to-go UVM based IP-VIP test and debug infrastructure, with curated test cases, scoreboards, and configuration scripts to address the exact need. Having an out-of-box verification kit configured by experts for each of the delivered IP can reduce over-all efforts, can significantly shift-left verification schedule and discover bugs well before IP integration to SoC and at the same time provides an UVM based environment that can be ported to the SoC infrastructure.

Synopsys SVK

Synopsys SVK provides out-of-the-box verification solution for complex protocols like UCIe, PCIe 5/6, CXL 2.0/3.0, DDR 5/4, HBM 2/3, Ethernet 800G, and many more. These tailor-made solutions help you achieve faster IP verification closure and lowers integration risk through proven verification methodologies.

Synopsys SVKs are built on top of Synopsys VIPs, which natively integrates with Synopsys Verdi? Protocol Analyzer?debug solution as well as?Synopsys Verdi? Performance Analyzer.

Conclusion

Synopsys SVK provides out-of-the-box verification solution for complex protocols like UCIe, PCIe 5/6, CXL 2.0/3.0, DDR 5/4, HBM 2/3, Ethernet 800G, and many more. These tailor-made solutions help you achieve faster IP verification closure and lowers integration risk through proven verification methodologies.

Synopsys SVKs are built on top of Synopsys VIPs, which natively integrates with Synopsys Verdi? Protocol Analyzer?debug solution as well as?Synopsys Verdi? Performance Analyzer.

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