Fast Validation of Mixed-Signal SoCs

Today’s mixed-signal SoCs are challenging to validate. Running enough test vectors often requires the use of event-driven simulation and hardware emulation, which in turn necessitates the creation of analog behavioral models. This paper reviews different approaches proposed to address tha...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Daniel Stanley, Can Wang, Sung-Jin Kim, Steven Herbst, Jaeha Kim, Mark Horowitz
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IEEE 2021-01-01
Series:IEEE Open Journal of the Solid-State Circuits Society
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9585345/
Description
Summary:Today&#x2019;s mixed-signal SoCs are challenging to validate. Running enough test vectors often requires the use of event-driven simulation and hardware emulation, which in turn necessitates the creation of analog behavioral models. This paper reviews different approaches proposed to address that modeling challenge, and shows how they can be divided by the methods used to solve for analog circuit values, represent analog waveforms, and validate analog functional models. We illustrate the power of these techniques as applied to a 16 Gb/s PHY, demonstrating a 10,<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$000\times $ </tex-math></inline-formula> speedup vs. SPICE simulation using event-driven models in Verilog simulation, and a further 5,<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$000\times $ </tex-math></inline-formula> speedup using synthesizable analog models in FPGA emulation.
ISSN:2644-1349