Verification In A Global Design Community
- 1. Verification In A Global Design Community Paul Tobin Senior Verification Manager AMD, Boxborough, MA
- 2. DVClub Boston, November 9, 2006 Verification Challenges Across Sites Chip Design Industry Is Now Global! – Work is done electronically, not over the cube wall or at the coffee station – This is increasingly true even within corporations “Integrate or be integrated” – Integration levels are increasing relative to “new design” Improve your skill at specifying integration requirements – True at Corporate level – True at Design level
- 3. DVClub Boston, November 9, 2006 What’s Inefficient About The Model? Time Zone Differences Stink – It’s always lunchtime for somebody – Or worse, bedtime E-mail Overload Stinks – Too many words, not enough pictures, no body language Videoconferencing Stinks – More time setting up equipment than talking Documentation suffers, TWiki Stinks – “I’ll just create a TWiki page” data not organized Methods diverge as f(#sites, #projects) – Testbench language, coverage, assertion, formal techniques, planning techniques, randomization, source control, model build, regression, coding standards, status reporting, headcount management, …
- 4. DVClub Boston, November 9, 2006 What’s Efficient? Documentation is forced to improve (starts with you!) – Focus on content quality, use common outlines Questions have to be asked earlier (starts with you!) – Don’t wait, don’t assume – Write down questions, AND ANSWERS More people are available, creative ideas abound – 80% of what you need is available somewhere! – But will it take longer to find than simply do again? Resist the urge to reinvent
- 5. DVClub Boston, November 9, 2006 Benefiting From The Trend Strike the Balance – Consolidation yes, centralization no – Coordination yes, dictatorship no – Invention everywhere yes, NIH no Get Executive Support, forge the right alliance – Collaboration with peer groups takes some effort, but the return can be significant – Describe successes, challenges, and mistakes – Spread the cost of experimentation
- 6. DVClub Boston, November 9, 2006 AMD’s Verification COE Center Of Expertise Coordinates Processor Verification Multisite Organization – Staff from Boston, Austin, Bangalore, Dresden, Sunnyvale, Fort Collins – Responsible for standardizing methodologies – Delivers all runtime infrastructure – Delivers some, not all, top level verification components – Evaluates new tools and methods Partners with Project Teams – Deployment of new techniques – Support for global tools and infrastructure – Coordinate major methodology changes – Jointly measure our success in terms of resource efficiency, improved schedules, and increasingly higher quality
- 7. DVClub Boston, November 9, 2006 Striking The Balance Continuous Methodology Improvement – Projects can, and must, innovate with new ideas – Verification COE innovates as well, and helps with communication across teams – Team at large agrees to regularly review new techniques, adopting those that are better, abandoning those that aren’t Refreshing The Team – Engineers can rotate through the COE and Projects – COE work gets carried back to Projects – New ideas get infused into the COE – Requires commitment from the verification managers
- 8. DVClub Boston, November 9, 2006 Trademark Attribution AMD, the AMD Arrow logo and combinations thereof are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. Other names used in this presentation are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners. ©2006 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. All rights reserved.