Formal-Based Observation Coverage Solution Magnifies Verification Closure Precision

Leveraging formal technologies, OneSpin Solutions developed Quantify software to increase the precision of verification-coverage measurements. As part of the company’s 360 DV-Verify line, Quantify augments the assertion-based verification (ABV) formal engine to create a closed-loop, coverage-driven verification flow. It analyzes manual or automatically produced assertion sets against corresponding register-transfer-level (RTL) blocks and provides direction regarding untested and untestable areas of the design, accelerating verification closure for these blocks. It also can be used to provide control coverage information for simulation and formal environments. Furthermore, it can act as an independent coverage arbiter of environments using simulation and formal solutions supplied by other companies. Quantify takes advantage of “Observation Coverage,” a metric that measures whether code changes in a design block will be caught by a specific verification environment. The software solution also can analyze design to pinpoint unreachable, redundant, or dead code, or over-constrained design areas, as well as components that remain unreached, to identify simulation coverage issues. An application programming interface (API) allows for integration with coverage databases, such as Accellera’s Unified Interoperability Standard (UCIS).

ONESPIN SOLUTIONS GmbH