Merging Verification And Test
By Brian Bailey
Reliability concerns throughout a device’s lifetime are driving fundamental changes in where and when these functions occur.
While the disciplines of functional verification and test serve different purposes, their histories were once closely intertwined. Recent safety and security monitoring requirements coupled with capabilities being embedded into devices is bringing them closer together again, but can they successfully cooperate to bring about improvements in both? Getting there may be difficult.
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Formal verification has forced functional verification to look more broadly at coverage metrics. “High reliability hardware requires a combination of functional verification technologies,” says Rob van Blommestein, head of marketing for OneSpin Solutions. “Simulation is the most widely used method, but simulation alone cannot get the job done. Formal adds a second efficient method for thorough verification because of its exhaustive nature. Only after understanding where the coverage holes are can exhaustive verification be achieved.”
