Cadence Design Systems, Inc.
Method and apparatus to accelerate verification signoff by selective re-use of integrated coverage models

Abstract:

In the context of electronic design automation and in particular coverage-driven verification, each of a number of integrated coverage models to be merged for coverage analysis are divided between a code coverage model and a functional coverage model. During a coverage model generation phase, new code coverage models or functional coverage models are created only if they are not already in a coverage model database repository; otherwise, they are copied. During a merging phase, code coverage models or functional coverage models are loaded only if they have not already been loaded. Signatures that can be based on checksums can be used to determine whether the models are unique or duplicates of those already created or loaded. Selectivity in the creation and re-use of the respective coverage models provides computational time savings in each of the creation and loading phases.