Definitions and Terminology

We exist in a multilanguage world where our success often depends on our ability to communicate intent and eliminate ambiguities. Yet even within a common discipline, such as engineering, the problem and solution space is often quite varied (due to historical, cultural, and technical reasons), which leads to a difference in terminology that results in misunderstandings. To ensure you (the reader) are on the same page with us (so to speak), we have included this chapter, which provides definitions for the terminology we use throughout the remainder of the book.

This chapter is divided into two main sections. The first section builds a framework for our discussion by introducing common verification components found within contemporary simulation environments. Understanding how the various verification components potentially interact and the communication channels required to connect these components is critical as we architect our assertion-based IP solution.

The second section of this chapter provides a set of definitions for many terms used throughout this book. In addition, we spell out a list of common acronyms related to our topic. In this section, we discuss architectural aspects of a contemporary transaction-level testbench. We chose the Advanced Verification Methodology [Glasser et al., 2007], which is a subset of the newly formed OVM, as the basis for our discussion because the source code for the OVM library is openly available and can be freely downloaded at http:// www.mentor.com/go/cookbook. Assuredly, there are other testbench base-class libraries available, and we encourage you to choose one that you feel comfortable with when creating your assertion-based IP. The general ideas, processes, and techniques we present in this book for creating assertion-based IP are easily extended to the specific implementation details of other verification environment methodologies, such as the VMM [Bergeron et al., 2006] and the eRM [2005].