CoreCreator® II FAQs


1. What is the general agreement to provide CoreCreator II to OCP-IP members?
2. Does the DesignWare® Verification IP replace the CoreCreator BFM?
3. What is the term of the licenses?
4. What limitations are there on member usage of DesignWare Verification IP for OCP?
5. Are there any functional differences from the DesignWare Verification IP provided through OCP-IP as part of the CoreCreator II package and the commercial licenses purchased from Synopsys?
6. Are there any functional differences from the SOLV product provided through OCP-IP as part of the CoreCreator II package and the commercial licenses purchased from Sonics?
7. How do members request licenses?
8. Does the VIP support all configurations of OCP 2.2?
9. What versions of the OCP standard does DesignWare Verification IP for OCP support?
10. Has the Verification IP been thoroughly tested?
11. Does the VIP include assertion IP?
12. What simulators does OCP VIP support?
13. What testbench languages does DesignWare VIP for OCP support?
14. What is SOLV?
15. Why would a customer use SOLV?



1: What is the general agreement to provide CoreCreator II to OCP-IP members?
A: Each paying member company of OCP-IP in good standing is entitled to three no-charge licenses of CoreCreator II as part of their subscription benefits. Members entitled to the licenses are GSC, Sponsor, Community, and Associate Community. University members may gain access to CoreCreator II through OCP-IP's University Program.
2: Does CoreCreator II replace the legacy CoreCreator BFM?
A: Yes, CoreCreator II is now the preferred VIP.
  1. The CoreCreator BFM will continue to be available on request to OCP-IP members, however there is no commitment to update the CoreCreator BFM to support new versions of the standard.
  2. CoreCreator II includes a legacy Verilog interface that is compatible with the CoreCreator BFM.
  3. CoreCreator II generates the OCP trace file format for use with CoreCreator post processing tools.
3: What is the term of the licenses?
A: Each OCP-IP member company will be provided, upon request, up to three licenses of the CoreCreator II for the remaining term of the member company’s OCP-IP membership period. New licenses will be provided annually, upon request, upon renewal of the company's membership.
4: What limitations are there on member usage of CoreCreator II?
A: The verification IP part of the product is provided by Synopsys and as with all Synopsys products users must abide by the terms of the Synopsys end user license agreement (EULA).
  1. The Synopsys EULA restricts licensees from using a Licensed Product, in this case DesignWare Verification IP, to develop or enhance any product that competes with the Licensed Product. This means you may not use the DesignWare Verification IP for OCP to develop or enhance development of your own Verification IP.
  2. Companies that have not signed the standard license agreement will be required to do so before the licenses are delivered. Synopsys will contact the person requesting the licenses to instigate signing of the EULA.
The SOLV part of the product is provided by Sonics and users must abide by the terms of the SOLV LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR OCP-IP MEMBERS.
  1. The SOLV LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR OCP-IP MEMBERS restricts licensees from using the licensed SOLV product develop or enhance any product that competes with the SOLV. This means you may not use the Sonics OCP Library for Verification to develop or enhance development of your own Verification IP.
  2. Companies must sign the SOLV LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR OCP-IP MEMBERS before being granted access to the SOLV part of the CoreCreator II product.
5: Are there any functional differences from the DesignWare verification IP product provided through OCP-IP as part of the CoreCreator II package and the commercial licenses purchased from Synopsys?
A: There are no functional differences in the verification IP between licenses provided through OCP-IP and the commercial licenses purchased from Synopsys. The binaries are the same, and the license keys are the same. They are merely obtained through a different process. 
6: Are there any functional differences from the SOLV product provided through OCP-IP as part of the CoreCreator II package and the commercial licenses purchased from Sonics?
A: There are no functional differences in the product functionality.  OCP-IP members are provided three (3) concurrent runtime licenses of SOLV upon request. If more than 3 licenses are required, please contact a Sonics sales representative (sales@sonics.com)
7: How do members request licenses?
A: Licenses for both the SOLV and Designware Verification IP for OCP portions of CoreCreator II can be requested via the OCP-IP Web site. Please supply the data requested in the request form and you will be sent the license keys within five working days.
  1. You will be asked to provide your Synopsys Site ID if you have one. This can be obtained from your system administrator. If you do not have a Site ID, one will be provided to you.
  2. If you only have an in-sync site id, Synopsys will generate a commercial Site ID for you.
  3. Download of the verification IP can be performed at any time from Synopsys’ IP directory: http://synopsys.com/products/designware/vip_solutions.html
  4. Send back the SOLV LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR OCP-IP MEMBERS as instructed.  Once membership is verified and the signed SOLV LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR OCP-IP MEMBERS is received, Sonics will provide the member with the package download instructions via email.
8: Does CoreCreator II support all configurations of OCP 2.2?
A: Yes.
9: What versions of the OCP standard does CoreCreator II support?
A: The current release provides support for the OCP 2.2 standard. It also includes support for OCP 2.0 which is the most widely used version of the standard today and OCP 2.1. The Verification IP does NOT support OCP 1.0, an older version that has a different implementation of support for burst transactions.
10: Has CoreCreator II been thoroughly tested?
A: Yes, OCP-IP has performed extensive testing to check that CoreCreator II conforms to the OCP 2.2 standard.
  1. In addition, Synopsys uses an extensive constrained random environment that includes all of the coverage groups defined in the protocol compliance section of the OCP functional specification. 
11: Does the VIP include assertion IP?
A: No, the DesignWare VIP includes a monitor which provides coverage information. Assertion IP may be obtained from the OCP-IP Web site.
12: What simulators does OCP VIP support?
A: The OCP verification IP supports hdl testbenches (SystemVerilog, Verilog and VHDL) in VCS, NC-Sim, and ModelSim. It also supports the VMM Methodology when used with VCS and VCS-MX.
13: What testbench languages does CoreCreator II support?
A: CoreCreator II currently supports SystemVerilog, Verilog and VHDL testbench languages.
14: What is SOLV?
A: Sonics OCP Library for Verification (SOLV) is a package of three components designed to enable debugging, performance tuning and validation of complex intellectual property (IP) cores using OCP interfaces. This suite of tools enables core designers to validate their OCP socket interfaces and maximize performance. SOLV consists of...
  1. SVA OCP Checker: The SVA OCP Checker validates OCP sockets for protocol compliance during simulation and generates OCP trace files for use by post-processing tools built using SystemVerilog Assertions. The SVA OCP Checker is a fourth generation protocol checker solution based upon over a decade of production experience by Sonics and its customers in completing OCP-based designs. The compliance check chapters in the OCP Specification were largely derived from the SVA OCP Checker, reflecting its historical status as the "gold standard" of OCP protocol compliance.
  2. OCP Disassembler (ocpdis2): ocpdis2 is a command line tool that allows for the display of OCP transactions in several convenient report formats that are also easily understood by user analysis scripts. These reports help designers visualize both the large number of signal groups and wide configurability of OCP concisely, without resorting to waveform views.
  3. OCP Performance Analyzer (ocpperf2): ocpperf2 is a command line tool that processes OCP trace files to produce a detailed breakdown of the bandwidth and latency characteristics of the OCP transfers and burst transactions that were monitored during a simulation.
15: Why would a customer use SOLV?
A: SOLV helps designers and isolate both functional and performance defects in their OCP-based designs, thereby reducing total verification time and costs while improving overall design quality. Sonics has delivered the SOLV tools to customers for more than a decade as part of the verification tooling for its highly configurable OCP-based IP cores. Over that time period, the tools have developed into a "must-have" for Sonics' internal use, and have helped Sonics' customers develop many dozens of SoCs that have shipped in cumulative volumes of well over 250 million devices.

CoreCreator is a registered trademark of the OCP-IP.
Synopsys and DesignWare are registered trademarks of Synopsys, Inc.