Software And Hardware Co-verification Of SOC Based On ARM9Core

With the development of IC design and manufacturing technology, the scale ofchip design is increasing, SOC has become the mainstream of IC development. SOCintegrates many IP to a single chip to improve the design speed, which makes thecomplexity of the function of the chip increased dramatically, while brings anenormous challenge to the verification of SOC chip. Different from the traditionalASIC verification, SOC validation includes not only hardware verification, but alsosoftware verification. Traditional verification technology has not been abled to meetthe need of SOC verifcation, hardware and software co-verification is used in theSOC system verification. At present, in the SOC development process, verificationis a key factor in the progress of project development, it accounts for about70%ofthe entire development cycle time.Therefore, how to shorten verification time andimprove verification efficiency and quality is of decisive significance to shorten timeto market of SOC chip.This paper is based on an ARM9core-based SOC chip development project asthe background. Firstly, the paper briefly introduces the development process SOCand traditional IC verification techniques, including functional verification, timingverification, formality verification, and physical verification. Next discusses thehardware and software co-verification technology of SOC, focusing on two widelyused hardware and software co-verification programs：Co-verification based onsimulation platform and Co-verification based on FPGA prototype. Then paperdescribes detailedly the system architecture and on-chip resources of the SOCproject to be verified, among them, ARM9microprocessor is the intermediary ofsystem software and hardware to interact.Finally, the last two chapters discuss detailedly the two sorts of co-verificationsolutions mentioned above. In Co-verification based simulation platform, firstlypaper introduces the different level of SOC functional simulation and current severalcommonly used software and hardware co-simulation methods. And then focuses onthe components of hardware and software co-simulation system of our SOC project, including hardware design, software design and design of simulationplatform.Finally, paper takes co-simulation of SPIM module for example toillustrate that this program has been successfully implemented. In theCo-verification based on FPGA prototype, Firstly analyzes the feasibility, objectivesand challenges of SOC prototype verification implemented with FPGA, introducesthe practical skills in FPGA co-verification, such as transplantation technology,debugging techniques. Then paper focuses on the design of FPGA prototypingverification platform and collaborative debugging process of software and hardwareof our project. Finally, paper takes FPGA verification of UART module for exampleto illustrate that this program also has been successfully implemented. In this project,I understood deeply the advantages and disadvantages of two verificationprograms.Simulation is easy to debug, but the speed is too slow, FPGA verificationis fast enough, but debugging is not easy. In practical applications, according to thedifferent objectives of verification and validation phase, use this two methods tocomplement and coordinate each other to verify, and ultimately to achieve the bestverification results.