Design Verification Club

General Verification

Robert Metzger - Hewlett-Packard

Robert Metzger is currently a senior software engineer at Hewlett-Packard in Richardson. He has worked as a programmer developing financial applications, optimizing compilers, programming tools, system administration tools, and graphical user interfaces using a wide variety of programming languages and operating systems. He has managed programmers developing financial applications, optimizing compilers, and programming tools at three different companies.

He is the author of "Debugging by Thinking: A Multi-disciplinary Approach", published by HP/Digital Press in 2004, and co-author of "Automatic Algorithm Recognition and Replacement", published by MIT Press in 2000.

Abstract:

Debugging is primarily an analytic activity, in contrast to the other phases of the software development cycle, which are primarily constructive. Software developers can benefit from using the analytic methods of a variety of other intellectual disciplines. These disciplines each have a point of analogy with debugging, a set of assumptions that form a worldview, and a set of techniques. This talk will briefly explore debugging techniques derived from the following intellectual disciplines:
- fictional detectives seeking criminals
- mathematicians constructing proofs
- safety experts investigating accidents
These techniques will be presented in the 'patterns' paradigm widely employed in recent software engineering literature.

Visit the Debugging by Thinking website for more information on this topic.

Asad Khan, Scott Morrison - Texas Instruments

PCI Express Verification Using Reference Modeling - pdf

Asad Khan:

Asad Khan is a lead Design Verification Engineer for PCI Express Switch project at Texas Instruments. He specializes in ground-up development of verification architectures with focus towards coverage-driven verification, efficient self-checking reference modeling techniques, and definition of verification methodologies. Asad has worked on the verification of multiple products based on PCI Express,1394, and PCI technologies while at Texas Instruments. Asad graduated with BSEE (summa cum laude) in 2001 from University of Texas at Arlington.

Scott Morrison:

Scott Morrison is a Design Verification Engineer for Mixed Signal IP Development at Texas Instruments. Verifying high-speed mixed signal SERDES as well as catalog products such as PCI Express Switch, Scott has specialized in advanced verification methodologies including constrained-random stimulus with self-checking environments and coverage-driven verification. In 2003, Scott received his Masters of Engineering at the University of Florida, USA, specializing in Digital Hardware and Signal Processing.

Reference modeling techniques for efficient verification of PCI Express Switch:
With growing complexity of new PCI Express designs where opportunity for IP-reuse may be limited or none, achieving high-quality first silicon demands deployment of novel verification techniques. PCI Express switch incorporates complexities of packet switching with challenges of current and legacy specifications. One strategy in achieving high-quality PCI Express switch silicon is creating reference models or predictors that work in cycle accurate, packet accurate, or hybrid fashion to verify the design. This paper discusses techniques using Specman to create reference models for block-level testing in such a way that these models seamlessly integrate at the chip-level without additional effort.