Product category:
Design and Development Software
News Release from: Verplex Systems | Subject: Conformal MEM
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 17 February 2003
Equivalence checking for embedded
memories
Conformal MEM is the first equivalence checking solution for embedded memories.
Conformal MEM is the first equivalence checking solution for embedded memories Currently in use in numerous production environments, including a leading microprocessor supplier, Conformal MEM automates equivalence checking of random access memories (RAMs), content addressable memories (CAMs) and register files, providing a fast, exhaustive means of functional verification
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 23 Mar 2001 at 8.00am (UK)
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Functional checker intercepts SoC bugs early
BlackTie functional checker from Verplex Systems is the industry's first full-chip multi-million-gate-capacity tool to accelerate the verification of SoC designs.
Formal verification just got faster
Verplex Systems has announced its next generation Conformal Logic Equivalence Checker.
Verplex will formally debut Conformal MEM at DATE 2003 in Munich.
According to a recent Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) report, memory typically makes up 52% of the die area of an SoC design, and by 2005, that figure is expected to increase to 71%.
Functional memory verification approaches based on simulation, including symbolic simulation, are time consuming and provide incomplete coverage, however.
Further reading
Verification for high-density FPGAs
Verplex Systems and Xilinx have launched one of the first formal verification environments specifically for the design of high-density FPGAs.
Verification library supports VHDL
Verplex Systems has expanded its Open Verification Library (OVL) to include support for the VHSIC hardware description language (VHDL).
Verification gets physical with complete SoC flow
Verplex Systems has made significant changes to its products to extend its market into the physical domain.
Conformal MEM's formal equivalence checking relies on rigorous, mathematical methods to exhaustively determine if a register transfer level (RTL) model is functionally equivalent to its implementation.
This vectorless approach is capable of quickly pinpointing bugs that previous approaches missed.
Memory designers using it are assured that their transistor-level memory implementations behave identically with their simulation model counterparts under all possible inputs and stored values.
Verifying memories using traditional methods requires many days or weeks to write test vectors, run simulation, isolate bugs and correct them.
Even then, the coverage is not thorough, leaving much of the memories unverified.
Conformal MEM provides exhaustive coverage in minutes or hours, without test vectors, and identifies corner case bugs at both the circuit and simulation model levels.
"Our goal was to develop an automated method that would be fast, easy to implement, and highly beneficial during system-level verification", notes Dr Kuang-Chien (KC) Chen, Verplex's Chief Technology Officer.
"Customer feedback has been extremely positive.
We're told Conformal MEM quickly details errors that would have been missed with a simulation-based methodology".
Conformal MEM is the industry's first formal equivalence checking solution for verifying embedded memory.
Previous solutions could neither read and understand the overwhelming variety of custom transistor logic used in memory design, nor compare them to higher-level behavioural models typically used for system-level simulation.
This left a gap between high-level system verification and implementation verification at the transistor-level.
To deal with memory logic, Conformal MEM employs functional recognition analysis algorithms that automatically abstract higher-level models from Spice or switch-level Verilog netlists.
To interpret system-level simulation models, typically written at the behavioural level and lacking the structure needed to make valid functional comparisons against transistor-level implementations, Conformal MEM uses predefined primitive templates that designers can embed in their models.
Primitives are flexible and reconfigurable, accepting user-specified parameters for width and depth and other memory characteristics, enabling designers to create RAMs, CAMs or register files of any complexity.
Designers can use RAM primitives to support any number of read only, write only, and/or read/write port combinations.
Primitives provided with Conformal MEM include single-port RAM, single-read and single-write port RAM, dual-port RAM, and dual-read and dual-write port RAM.
It also generates complete models of the entire memory containing embedded primitives to support system-level simulation and verification.
According to Andy Lin, Verplex Vice President of Research and Development: "Conformal MEM's patent-pending breakthrough in memory verification will dramatically increase the quality of and confidence in memory designs.
Previously, where memory was concerned, most of the chip went unverified - a disaster when bugs were missed and multiple respins resulted to catch and correct them".
Conformal MEM is shipping today and supports Hewlett Packard HP-Unix, Sun Microsystems Solaris and Linux operating systems.
The annual cost of a three-year, time-based license is $125,000, and Verplex provides an upgrade path for those customers who already own the Conformal LEC equivalence checker and Conformal LTX transistor abstraction tool.
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