Chapter 1 - Introduction

Abstract

This chapter introduces the concept of functional verification of electronic design. Functional verification focuses on the design before a single part is built. Functional verification attempts to determine if the design will operate as specified. This requires a specification that indicates what constitutes correct operation, or how the device is intended to function. The goal of functional verification is to prove that a design will work as intended. There are four components to achieve this goal: determine what the intent is; determine what the design does; compare the two to ensure that they match; and estimate the level of confidence of the verification effort. Determining the intent of the system is a necessity for functional verification to succeed. The intent could be defined as what the system is supposed to do, which may be different from what it actually does. The second part of functional verification is to determine what a design does. This is the first step in comparing the design with the intent. There are a number of other complexities that arise during the process of functional verification. One of the most frequently discussed is determining the completeness criteria of the verification. Moreover, functional verification is rarely certain and rarely complete. Given the importance of success to many verification projects, estimation methods are used to provide an approximation of the quality level of the functional verification.