On measuring the effectiveness of various design validation approaches for PowerPC microprocessor embedded arrays

Abstract

Design validation for embedded arrays remains as a challenging problem in today's microprocessor design environment. At Somerset, validation of array designs relies on both formal verification and vector simulation. Although several methods for array design validation have been proposed and had great success [Ganguly et al. 1996; Pandey et al. 1996, 1997; Wang and Abadir 1997], little evidence has been reported for the effectiveness of these methods with respect to the detection of design errors. In this paper, we measure the effectiveness of different validation approaches based on automatic design error injection and simulation. The technique provides a systematic way to evaluate various validation approaches at both logic and transistor levels. Experimental results on recent PowerPC microprocessor arrays will be discussed and reported.