Live from ISQED: The 70% Solution or “How to reduce verification costs”

EDN’s Ron Wilson has already done a terrific job of covering the third ISQED 2010 keynote speech by Denali CTO and CFO Mark Gogolewski titled “Beyond Endless Verification.” If you want to learn how Denali has drastically reduced verification costs for complex IP block development, be sure to read Ron’s comprehensive description of Gogolewski’s keynote here. Because I don’t want to repeat Ron, I’ll just add this summarization of the steps Denali made in developing a configurable PCIe interface block and the lessons learned. There are essentially five steps:

1.      Put your sharpest people on the job (Fewer the better)

2.      Adhere to a lean design methodology

3.      Deploy a comprehensive verification methodology

4.      Adopt industry-proven VIP

5.      Define and measure “quality”

One of the things that most impressed me was Denali’s IP-development approach, which closely parallels the maxims of agile development and one of the hallmarks of agile development is frequent use of automated testing. Denali’s test automation is rigorous and it is immense. Nightly configuration runs on thousands of IP block configurations root out problems that can be addressed quickly by the development team. The use of verification IP developed by a different team ensures that one development team’s assumptions do not color both the IP block and the test tools.

The bottom line is that Denali’s approach to IP development incurs much less verification cost than the industry norm: 43% of the overall development cost instead of what the industry now considers the norm—70% or more. If companies do not take steps to stem the rise in verification costs, said Gogolewski, then verification costs will eventually consume the entire project. “When verification costs reach 100%, design activity stops” said Gogolewski.