Design and Implementation of Automation Approaches for Efficient SoC Verification

Abstract

The increasing complexity of modern System-on-Chip (SoC) designs has significantly increased the effort required for functional verification, making it one of the most time consuming phases of the semiconductor design cycle. Efficient management of verification activities such as simulation execution, regression testing, test management, and result analysis is essential to ensure design correctness while meeting project timelines. However, many stages of the verification flow still involve repetitive manual processes, which can reduce productivity and increase the possibility of human error. This work presents the design and implementation of automation techniques aimed at improving the efficiency of selected stages in the SoC verification flow. Proposed Approach In the presented work, the effort will concentrate on the automation of the relevant verification processes such as simulation execution, regression management and log file or result analysis. The proposed automated techniques reduce the manual work for engineers. Through the implementation of automated scripts and an automated flow, the effort required for the verification can be minimized and the verification productivity can be increased. Within this verification flow, an efficiency gain in single stages is intended by the utilization of automated techniques by eliminating tedious, manual effort and facilitating automated procedures. Presently, the goal is to set up the automation framework and find critical points in the verification flow to make a beneficial contribution. Ultimately, a result of this project is an optimized verification workflow and simplified verification process management. After the setup, more implementation and integration and measurement of automated solutions in the existing verification flow shall follow in other parts of the project.