OCP VIP: A Cost Effective and Robust
Qualification Process
Open Core Protocol (OCP) flexibility,
configurability and scalability are the key elements making OCP widely used
and successful into major electronics markets. Based on these
characteristics any IP can adopt the best interface for the connection to
the OCP backbone with immediate benefit for bandwidth capability. This has
made OCP broadly used in many applications like multimedia, telecom and
gaming.
In these consumer market domains, time-to-market
is the key success factor for products; as a consequence a straightforward
silicon proven verification process aiming at creating first-time-working
SoC is mandatory to win over competitors and to avoid silicon
re-spins.
In contrast to other
protocols, the OCP characteristics offer system
architects an unprecedented added value that must be coupled with powerful
silicon-proven verification techniques like the usage of mature VIP for the
validation of functionality of the SoC with OCP on board. On the other hand,
the freedom and flexibility allowed by OCP makes it impossible to define an
OCP conformance test . This is a significant
challenge for system designers. However, any risk is drastically reduced
when a solid and comprehensive VIP Qualification Process (QP) is available,
because this will ensure best-in-class quality level, a measure of
reliability, then robustness.
The ideal scenario for achieving an exhaustive OCP VIP Qualification Process
is a dramatic challenge since the number of the allowed profiles, interface
configurations and multiple combinations of them
make make it difficult to set up a QP according to such approach: the
massive cost for the high multiplicity and the undetermined level of
reliability, a consequence of the lack of a OCP ISO conformance
test.
The Qualification Process (QP) for OCP VIP
implemented by Yogitech Verification Team has been setup with a rigorous
heuristic approach, and it is a distilled format of the long lasting
experience of product support, with many OCP-based designs having ended on
silicon.
It is based on a methodology capable of extending the OCP-IP
consortium official checks, coverage items and standard configurations with
a larger number of profiles, filtered with a systematic methodology and
robust metrics. The QP selective regression test suite is shaped in such a
way to get unprecedented level of cross-coverage over both the whole set of
profiles and features. This approach increases OCP VIP quality and
robustness to the highest level, allowing the final users to trust the
verification process, whatever profile or configuration they have chosen to
use.
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