MetaPSS: An Automation Framework for Generation of Portable Stimulus Model

Abstract:
Nowadays, System-on-Chip designs need a great deal of effort and time during the functional verification as designs have become more complex. A significant part of this effort is the creation of tests (stimulus) since verification engineers spend ~20% of the project time for it according to Wilson Research Group Functional Verification Study. To reduce this, it is needed to create reusable representation of test scenarios and automated stimulus throughout the verification spectrum. This need is fulfilled by the Accellera’s Portable Test and Stimulus Standard (PSS) language, which provides a means of capturing test scenarios that can be reused across verification levels (block, subsystem, and SoC) and execution environments (simulation, emulation, and prototype). In this work, we present a Python based generation language and framework for PSS modeling in order to increase functional verification productivity. The proposed approach generates a PSS model according to the Accellera standard that can be processed by a variety of Portable Stimulus tools, each of which will be able to generate a consistent and coherent implementation of the verification intent. The applicability of our approach for reallife industrial designs is demonstrated by generating a PSS model for different IPs.