Hayward, Calif. -- August 29, 2007 -- Averant Inc., a leading provider of advanced verification technology for RTL designs, today announced the achievement of AMBA(r) 3 Assured status for SolidPC(tm) 2.0, Averant's property checking product for AMBA interconnect protocol compliance.
SolidPC's combination of ARM technology-developed and endorsed AMBA rule sets, the Solidify First in Formal(tm) property checking engine, and a purpose built, easy to use, graphical user interface makes SolidPC the tool of choice for AMBA protocol verification. As users most often use only a subset of the AMBA protocol, SolidPC allows selection of the AMBA rule set being verified at the click of a menu button. SolidPC 2.0 adds a number of important features, but most importantly adds support for the AMBA 3 AXI(tm) protocol and a multicore processing environment. The multicore processing environment enables a nearly linear speedup in run time, with tests showing a 3.96 increase in performance for SolidPC on a 4-processor machine.
Other key features in SolidPC 2.0 include pushbutton integration to simulators for debug, and the addition of converse protocol rules. When SolidPC determines that there is an issue with a protocol rule, it produces a testbench and waveform trace to allow the user to analyze the rule failure within a traditional simulation environment. This testbench, in the RTL language, can be run at the push of a button on any of the most popular simulators to allow the user to debug in their familiar environment. The converse rules have been developed and implemented where appropriate, to prove that unintended behavior cannot happen. For example, if the user's design is not intended to support burst transfers, and this rule is de-selected in the SolidPC GUI, it enables a converse rule to be checked, verifying that burst transfers can never happen.
"As a developer of leading edge IP products, verification is critical to our success and the success of our customers," said Purna Mohanty, vice president for ASIC Architect, Inc. "SolidPC is helping us to get out higher quality products in a shorter amount of time."
SolidPC was the first formal verification product for AMBA interconnect compliance to be endorsed by ARM, in 2003, and remains as the only formal verification product to have achieved AMBA 3 Assured status. The ARM AMBA Assured program is meant to provide AMBA users easy access to tools that have gone through the rigorous certification process by ARM.
"We have worked closely with Averant engineers to ensure tight compliance of the SolidPC 2.0 tool with the AMBA 3 AXI specification," said Rob Kaye, AMBA Portfolio Manager at ARM. "The use of such formal methods will enable our mutual customers to efficiently and thoroughly validate their AMBA 3 AXI technology-based SoCs and in so doing, reduce overall chip verification time."
"Static functional verification is a natural fit for protocol verification," said Ramin Hojati, CEO of Averant. "Enabling designers to find the bugs in their bus interface earlier in the design cycle saves valuable man-hours later in the project and accelerates verification closure."
Averant is a member of the ARM Connected Community.
Availability
SolidPC 2.0 is available now on Linux, Windows and Solaris platforms.
About Averant
Averant Inc., founded in 1997, is a privately held EDA firm pioneering new methodology and technologies for static formal verification. Averant's flagship product is Solidify, a robust formal verification engine that provides the basis for property-based design verification, protocol verification, timing constraint verification, and automatic design checks all without the need for simulators or test vectors. These tools are easily adopted into the design flow, and help improve quality, reduce risk, and speed the design process. For more information, see our web site at http://www.averant.com.