Perhaps the biggest cliche in EDA is that functional verification consumes 70% of a chip project’s resources and is growing. Variations on this statistic have been around for at least ten years, probably more. It’s quoted almost as much as Moore’s Law, which incidentally turned 50 this year. Although not as old, the observation that verification dominates SoC development is almost universally accepted. Some may argue the exact percentage, but the spirit remains the same. As a consequence of this state, verification content is turning up everywhere. In today’s post, I’d like to summarize some recent and upcoming events of interest, plus remind you of some related topics covered in previous posts.
My first updates involves DVClub, the informal gathering of verification professionals held in multiple locations around the world. Yesterday was DVClub Silicon Valley, held as usual at Dave & Buster’s mega-arcade in Milpitas. Olig Petlin presented “Formal property verification at AMD: Theory and Practice” to a good-sized crowd. The talk was a nice, comprehensive overview of formal analysis and how it is typically deployed, but I would have liked to hear more specifics about AMD uses it on their projects. Paradigm Works recently assumed management of DVClub in the USA and is doing an excellent job of reinvigorating the franchise with more events in more locations. Boston on May 13 and Austin on June 3 are next on the calendar.
