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! â Work is done electronically, not over the cube wall or at the coffee station â This is increasingly true even within corporations âIntegrate or be integratedâ â Integration levels are increasing relative to ânew designâ Improve your skill at specifying integration requirements â True at Corporate level â True at Design level
- 3. DVClub Boston, November 9, 2006 Whatâs Inefficient About The Model? Time Zone Differences Stink â Itâs always lunchtime for somebody â Or worse, bedtime E-mail Overload Stinks â Too many words, not enough pictures, no body language Videoconferencing Stinks â More time setting up equipment than talking Documentation suffers, TWiki Stinks â âIâll just create a TWiki pageâ data not organized Methods diverge as f(#sites, #projects) â Testbench language, coverage, assertion, formal techniques, planning techniques, randomization, source control, model build, regression, coding standards, status reporting, headcount management, âŚ
- 4. DVClub Boston, November 9, 2006 Whatâs Efficient? Documentation is forced to improve (starts with you!) â Focus on content quality, use common outlines Questions have to be asked earlier (starts with you!) â Donât wait, donât assume â Write down questions, AND ANSWERS More people are available, creative ideas abound â 80% of what you need is available somewhere! â 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 â Consolidation yes, centralization no â Coordination yes, dictatorship no â Invention everywhere yes, NIH no Get Executive Support, forge the right alliance â Collaboration with peer groups takes some effort, but the return can be significant â Describe successes, challenges, and mistakes â Spread the cost of experimentation
- 6. DVClub Boston, November 9, 2006 AMDâs Verification COE Center Of Expertise Coordinates Processor Verification Multisite Organization â Staff from Boston, Austin, Bangalore, Dresden, Sunnyvale, Fort Collins â Responsible for standardizing methodologies â Delivers all runtime infrastructure â Delivers some, not all, top level verification components â Evaluates new tools and methods Partners with Project Teams â Deployment of new techniques â Support for global tools and infrastructure â Coordinate major methodology changes â 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 â Projects can, and must, innovate with new ideas â Verification COE innovates as well, and helps with communication across teams â Team at large agrees to regularly review new techniques, adopting those that are better, abandoning those that arenât Refreshing The Team â Engineers can rotate through the COE and Projects â COE work gets carried back to Projects â New ideas get infused into the COE â 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. Š2006 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. All rights reserved.