Imperas Collaborates with Mentor on RISC-V Core RTL Coverage Driven Design Verification Analysis

Leading commercial simulation technology from Imperas combined with Mentor’s Questa SystemVerilog RTL verification platform extends the hardware design verification of RISC-V cores with industrial quality coverage methodologies

Oxford, United Kingdom, February 21, 2020​ — Imperas Software Ltd., the leader in virtual platforms and high-performance software simulation, today announced a collaboration with Mentor, a Siemens business, on the latest hardware Design Verification (DV) Flow for RISC-V processor implementations, to ensure an easy to use reference methodology is available to processor developers, users and adopters across the RISC-V ecosystem.

RISC-V as an open ISA (Instruction Set Architecture) that allows many approaches to implement a processor core and provides SoC developers with a wide range of sourcing options, including commercial IP suppliers, open-source projects and self-developed in-house cores. In addition, the Open ISA aspect of RISC-V also permits the SoC developer to extend the standard core configurations with optimized custom instructions or extensions. Coupled with this design freedom is the challenge faced by DV engineers on the verification and test plans required for the next generation of domain specific devices.

Working with the Google Cloud Open-Source RISC-V Instruction Stream Generator (https://github.com/google/riscv-dv), the team at Imperas, with assistance from Mentor, developed and enhanced the verification flow to compare the same corner case scenario for the functional behavior of the RTL-under-test, using the Questa™ platform environment against the golden reference model developed by Imperas. This reference model, riscvOVPsim, is available for free on GitHub for both academic and commercial users. The latest development has been to expand the coverage analysis features to assist the DV engineers as they develop comprehensive test and verification plans for a new core implementation, custom extension, or initial assessment of a core prior to SoC integration.

“RISC-V offers processor designers and SoC developers flexibility in design configuration and optimization for the next generation of domain specific devices,” said Neil Hand, director of marketing, Design Verification Technology Division at Mentor, a Siemens business. “Our collaboration with Imperas and the golden reference simulator coupled with the Google Cloud Open-Source RISC-V ISG can provide DV engineers with a flow that now includes the critical coverage analysis required to support the latest verification methodologies.”

“Verification, or more accurately, the professional DV engineering community, has become one of the critical aspects of all successful SoC designs and first-time tape-out success,” said Simon Davidmann, president and CEO of Imperas. “Quality is not an afterthought to a program schedule; verification plans are fundamental and addressing the complexities of the latest designs requires coverage analysis that provides the essential quantitative assessment of quality.”

The reference simulator, riscvOVPsim, is free, and available now for download on GitHub https://www.github.com/riscv/riscv-ovpsim, along with the latest RISC-V compliance test suite and framework, also available on GitHub:https://www.github.com/riscv/riscv-compliance. It includes a free to use license from Imperas, which supports commercial as well as academic use. The open source model is licensed under the Apache 2.0 license.

The riscvOVPsim solution is an entry ramp for development, as well as a compliance testing tool. For developers of more advanced RISC-V designs, who need multi-core support and advanced debug tools, Imperas also offers full-capability virtual platforms of leading RISC-V platforms including the multi-core SiFive U540 and many others. Using Imperas, developers can configure/customize these extendable platforms or develop their own platforms. Further details are available at www.imperas.com/riscv.

Imperas will demonstrate this RISC-V verification flow, at the upcoming DVCon 2020 in San Jose, California, March 2‑5, see more details at this link.

About Imperas

Imperas is revolutionizing the development of embedded software and systems and is the leading provider of RISC-V processor models and virtual prototype solutions. Imperas, along with Open Virtual Platforms (OVP), promotes open source model availability for a spectrum of processors, IP vendors, CPU architectures, system IP and reference platform models of processors and systems ranging from simple single core bare metal platforms to full heterogeneous multi-core systems booting SMP Linux. All models are available from Imperas at www.imperas.com and the Open Virtual Platforms (OVP) website.