Writing Testbenches: Functional Verification of HDL Models

1 What is Verification?.- What is a Testbench?.- The Importance of Verification.- Reconvergence Model.- The Human Factor.- What Is Being Verified?.- Functional Verification Approaches.- Testing Versus Verification.- Design and Verification Reuse.- The Cost of Verification.- Summary.- 2 Verification Tools.- Linting Tools.- Simulators.- Verification Intellectual Property.- Waveform Viewers.- Functional Coverage.- Verification Languages.- Assertions.- Revision Control.- Issue Tracking.- Metrics.- Summary.- 3 The Verification Plan.- The Role of the Verification Plan.- Levels of Verification.- Verification Strategies.- From Specification to Features.- Directed Testbenches Approach.- Coverage-Driven Random-Based Approach.- Summary.- 4 High-Level Modeling.- Behavioral versus RTL Thinking.- You Gotta Have Style!.- Structure of Behavioral Code.- Data Abstraction.- Object-Oriented Programming.- Aspect-Oriented Programming.- The Parallel Simulation Engine.- Race Conditions.- Verilog Portability Issues.- Summary.- 5 Stimulus and Response.- Reference Signals.- Simple Stimulus.- Simple Output.- Complex Stimulus.- Bus-Functional Models.- Response Monitors.- Transaction-Level Interface.- Summary.- 6 Architecting Testbenches.- Test Harness.- VHDL Test Harness.- Design Configuration.- Self-Checking Testbenches.- Directed Stimulus.- Random Stimulus.- Summary.- 7 Simulation Management.- Behavioral Models.- Pass or Fail?.- Managing Simulations.- Regression.- Summary.- Appendix A Coding Guidelines.- Directory Structure.- VHDL Specific.- Verilog Specific.- General Coding Guidelines.- Comments.- Layout.- Syntax.- Debugging.- Naming Guidelines.- Capitalization.- Identifiers.- Constants.- HDL & HVL Specific.- Filenames.- HDL Coding Guidelines.- Structure.- Layout.- VHDL Specific.- Verilog Specific.- Appendix B Glossary.- Afterwords.