OVERVIEW

When starting a design effort, it is natural for the verification and design teams to focus initially on the main function of the design. In this chapter the normal chip operations are called mainline functions. Much thought goes into the stimulus and checking components required to verify the architectural compliance and the microarchitectural features of the chip's mainline function. Amazingly, verifying hardware functionality under normal operations is only half of the verification battle, because the end users' expectations are much greater than basic system functionality. Verification teams must also create tests for functions beyond the normal stream of operations.

Pervasive functions are those operations beyond the normal chip or system operations. These functions support the chip infrastructure, allowing the end user to get the system into a good state, to manage it while running mainline operations, to administer maintenance operations, and to diagnose any problems. These functions are globally woven into the chip design and orthogonal to the mainline functions. Pervasive functions include the resetting of the hardware, built-in self test (automated, hardware-driven diagnostics), recovery scenarios, chip level testability, low-power modes, and all hardware debug mechanisms. This chapter discusses the basic strategies required for success in pervasive verification.

The amount of pervasive function required for the hardware depends on the customers' expectations and the usage of the hardware. Some hardware may have little or no recovery mechanisms, leaving the consumer to perform recovery by switching off the power and rebooting. On the other hand, robust designs have...