Functional Verification Of High-performance Processor Based On X86

With the technology dimension, the complexity and the scale of processordesign are increasing. Functional verification of large-scale processor has been achallenge. According to statistics, function verification will account for60%-80%of the entire design cycle. How to verify the function quickly and efficiently hasbecome the primary problem of processor design.There are two kinds of methods for the functional verification of thegeneral-purpose processor, one is simulation based verification, and the other isformal verification. Formal verification method can only handle small-scale designin actual industrial applications. So verification engineers often use simulationmethod. In this thesis, we study the functional verification of the general-purposeprocessor and verify a processor named Godson-D in real-address mode and virtual8086mode. Godson-D is a general-purpose processor based on x86architecture.The main contributions of this thesis are as follows:1. The system architecture and the instruction set of the processor are studied,base on which the switch of the processor in different modes of operation iscompleted.2. Analyses are given on the function, the operational characteristics and theoperational process of complex instructions of the processor. The functioncoverage points of instructions are summaried, and test_cases are written forthe proposed coverage points, achieving1000%code coverage and functionalcoverage of the RTL design.3. Analyses are given onthe function of system-management instruction of theprocessor. Function points according to the Intel’s manual Instruction SetReference, System Programming Guide are extracted for system-managementinstruction including all kinds of exceptions during the running of instructions.