Verification Of USB2.0Controller IP

The function of digital system getting more complex induces that the functionalverification gets more difficulty. At present in chip design team, the resource offunctional verification accounts for70%or even more90%of the whole resource ofdesign, verification work of RTL level accounts for about50%of the whole verificationspending. So RTL level verification and advanced verification have become thebottleneck of the whole design process, and exist very level of design flow.Coverage-driven verification method is that input the constraint stimuli to DUVand check the result in the output. The advantage of this method is that stimuli could begenerated easily, cover huge verification space quickly, and cover corner cases step bystep through different stimuli time after time. However there are still someshortcomings in this method: finding bugs effectivelessly just analyzing wave file andchecking the output, costing stimulation times, and poor observability, cover cornercases hardly.This paper introduces the main verification methods firstly, and discusses the faultand hardness of Coverage-driven verification. Introduce the method of combinationassertion and coverage-driven verification and use assertion to remedy the fault andenhance the observability and controllability，design bugs could be found earlier,simulation time could be decreased and the hazard of bug ignore could be reduced.Then this paper analyses the advantage and fault of some assertion languages, and usethe SVA（System Verilog Assertion）because of its convenience and usefulness. Thispaper analyses the progress of building USB2.0controller verification environment withSVA. The method of combination assertion and coverage-driven verification used inUSB2.0controller verification improves the efficiency, reduces the cycle of verification.Finally this paper analyses the result of verification, compares the data of twomethods. The conclusion is that the method of combination assertion and coverage-driven verification reduces much more time than Coverage-driven verification method.