OVERVIEW

As mentioned in the previous chapter, one of the mechanisms that can be used to improve the efficiency and reliability of a process is automation. This chapter covers technologies used in a state-of-the-art functional verification environment. Some of these technologies, such as simulators, are essential for the functional verification activity to take place. Others, such as linting or code coverage technologies, automate some of the most tedious tasks of verification and help increase the confidence in the outcome of the functional verification. This chapter does not contain an exhaustive list of verification technologies, as new application-specific and general purpose verification automation technologies are regularly brought to market.

As a verification engineer, your job is to use the necessary technologies to ensure that the verification process does not miss a significant functional bug. As a project manager responsible for the delivery of a working product on schedule and within the allocated budget, your responsibility is to arm your engineers with the proper tools to do their job efficiently and with the necessary degree of confidence. Your job is also to decide when the cost of finding the next functional bug has increased above the value the additional functional correctness brings. This last responsibility is the heaviest of them all. Some of these technologies provide information to help you decide when you've reached that point.

This chapter presents various verification technologies...