Coverage Driven Verification for Mixed Signal Systems

Abstract:
Even though analog parts of today’s mixed-signal chips are relatively small in terms of area and complexity, the design and verification effort for those parts is increasing. Moreover, chips operate in complex and mostly analog environments that must be taken into account in many cases. At the same time, reliability demand is zerodefect, e.g. for automotive components. Advanced verification methods like coverage driven verification are currently used to address the growing verification problem in the digital domain. However, these techniques are not yet addressing the problem of integrated analog parts in the digital context. This paper describes the use of coverage driven verification for analog/mixed-signal systems. The first part contains a general discussion of the digital verification method as of today and the possible mapping to an analog/mixed-signal design scenario. The second part describes a demo example that shows the coverage driven verification approach for a true mixedsignal/ mixed domain system. The system contains electrical as well as mechanical and software parts and is therefore a good representation of today’s complex system designs.