9.8 Embedded Tutorial: Analog-/Mixed-Signal Verification Methods for AMS Coverage Analysis

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Date: Thursday 17 March 2016
Time: 08:30 - 10:00
Location / Room: Exhibition Theatre

Organiser:
Gregor Nitsche, OFFIS, DE

Chair:
Lars Hedrich, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, DE

Co-Chair:
Christoph Grimm, University of Kaiserslautern, DE

Analog-/Mixed-Signal (AMS) design verification is one of the most challenging and time consuming tasks of today's complex system on chip (SoC) designs. Hence, to optimize time to market while ensuring safety and quality of the design, measuring the verification quality became crucial in deciding whether the regarded system is sufficiently tested or verified. Especially in the area of safety-critical design - e.g. automotive hardware and software applications - coverage metrics are commonly used to evaluate the amount of the already invested verification effort by comparing the number of analyzed verification or test scenarios with an overall number of scenarios. Due to the finite and discrete nature of digital systems the overall number can either be obtained from the model of the design (structural coverage) or from its specification (functional coverage). In contrast to digital system design, AMS designers have to deal with a continuous state space of conservative quantities, highly nonlinear relationships, differential equations etc., impeding compositionality and enlarging the number of possible states and behaviors to infinity. In addition to these functional properties, non-functional effects like crosstalk over supply or parasitic coupling have to be investigated in industrial size designs. Moreover, several levels of abstraction have to be considered, requiring methods for system level as well as transistor level circuits. Since digital domain coverage metrics are not directly applicable for AMS circuits and systems, industrial use-cases demand for novel coverage-oriented modeling and verification strategies to be investigated to tackle this challenge, making the quality and quantity of AMS verification measurable. Within this embedded tutorial we present methods and concepts to improve the AMS verification process and to allow for the evaluation of the coverage, proposing different metrics of AMS coverage.

TimeLabelPresentation Title
Authors
08:309.8.0EMBEDDED TUTORIAL: ANALOG-/MIXED-SIGNAL VERIFICATION METHODS FOR AMS COVERAGE ANALYSIS
Speaker:
Gregor Nitsche, OFFIS -- Insitute for Information Technology, DE
Authors:
Gregor Nitsche1, Carna Radojicic2 and Georg Gläser3
1OFFIS Institute for Information Technology, DE; 2University of Kaiserslautern, DE; 3IMMS Institut für Mikroelektronik- und Mechatronik-Systeme gemeinnützige GmbH, DE
Abstract
Analog-/Mixed-Signal (AMS) design verification is one of the most challenging and time consuming tasks of today's complex system on chip (SoC) designs. In contrast to digital system design, AMS designers have to deal with a continuous state space of conservative quantities, highly nonlinear relationships, non-functional influences, etc. enlarging the number of possibly critical scenarios to infinity. In this special session we demonstrate the verification of functional properties using simulative and formal methods. We combine different approaches including automated abstraction and refinement of mixed-level models, state-space discretization as well as affine arithmetic. To reach sufficient verification coverage with reasonable time and effort, we use enhanced simulation schemes to avoid conventional simulation drawbacks.

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08:309.8.1TOWARDS MORE DEPENDABLE VERIFICATION USING SYMBOLIC SIMULATION
Speaker:
Carna Radojicic, University of Kaiserslautern, DE
Authors:
Carna Radojicic1, Christoph Grimm1, Fabian Speicher2 and Stefan Heinen2
1University of Kaiserslautern, DE; 2RWTH Aachen, DE
09:009.8.2IDENTIFICATION OF CRITICAL SCENARIOS IN AMS VERIFICATION: METHODOLOGY FOR FINDING THE SAFE OPERATING AREA OF AMS SYSTEMS
Speaker:
Georg Gläser, IMMS Institut für Mikroelektronik- und Mechatronik-Systeme gemeinnützige GmbH, DE
Authors:
Georg Gläser1, Hyun-Sek Lukas Lee2, Markus Olbrich2, Erich Barke2 and Eckhard Hennig3
1IMMS Institut für Mikroelektronik- und Mechatronik-Systeme gemeinnützige GmbH, DE; 2Leibniz Universität Hannover, DE; 3Reutlingen University, DE
09:309.8.3AMS LEAF-COMPONENT CHARACTERIZATION WITH CONTRACTS AND SATISFACTION CHECKING VS. ELECTRONIC CIRCUIT SCHEMATICS
Speaker:
Gregor Nitsche, OFFIS - Institute for Information Technology, DE
Authors:
Gregor Nitsche1, Andreas Fürtig2, Lars Hedrich2 and Wolfgang Nebel3
1OFFIS Institute for Information Technology, DE; 2Goethe University, DE; 3University of Oldenburg and OFFIS, DE
10:00End of session
Coffee Break in Exhibition Area