Bob Colwell was Intel's chief IA32 (Pentium) microprocessor architect from 1992-2000, and managed the IA32 Architecture group at Intel's Hillsboro, Oregon facility through the P6 and Pentium 4 projects.

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The Accellera VIP TSC is making excellent progress on the Universal Verification Methodology (UVM). Approved on December 23, 2009, the UVM will create a single testbench methodology based on the Open Verification Methodology (OVM) with contributions coming from OVM, VMM, and other sources. Since the initial approval, the committee has been defining development processes and identifying specific features to deliver with a refined goal of releasing the first version of UVM in early Q2 2010.

The VIP TSC met face to face during March and achieved a defined roadmap with a very specific delivery date. Cadence led many of the technical discussions including the detailed development process, the end-of-test specification, and the feature definition for the first release. On the technical implementation side, Cadence is delivering the end-of-test code, much of the user guide, and code for callbacks as well as support for the UVM which runs on the Incisive Enterprise Simulator already. By guiding the TSC toward proven implementations drawn from OVM, Cadence is enabling the first release of the UVM to be production-ready on April 30, 2010 (release date at the time this article was written).

Given the delay between the writing of this article and its publication, how does the verification community stay up-to-date and what action should the community take regarding UVM? On the first point, you can join the VIP TSC even if you aren’t an Accellera member to see the development first-hand. You can also check the Cadence blogs, the Accellera site, or your local Cadence representative to learn the latest information. On the second point, it depends on what you are using today. If you are an OVM user in the middle of a project, you should stay with OVM knowing that Cadence is working to assure backward compatibility. If you are a VMM 1.0/1.1 user or a custom library user, you should consider moving to OVM if you are starting a new project in April, or directly to UVM if you are starting a project in May. Cadence can help you apply the VIP TSC’s interoperability library to make that migration easier. Finally, if you are considering VMM 1.2, you may want to reconsider that decision. Given that 1.2 represents a complete different methodology from 1.0/1.1 this would be the right time to move to OVM so that you ready spring into UVM later this spring.