Verification of the Cell Broadband Engine/spl trade/ processor

Author

Shimizu, Kanna ; Gupta, Sanjay ; Koyama, Tatsuya ; Omizo, Takashi ; Abdulhafiz, Jamee ; McConville, Larry ; Swanson, Todd

Author_Institution

IBM Corp., Austin, TX

fYear

0

fDate

0-0 0

Firstpage

338

Lastpage

343

Abstract

Successfully developing an implementation of entirely new chip architecture such as the Cell Broadband Enginetrade (Cell BE) processor from scratch is a notable achievement. Consider further the design complexity (234 million transistors) and the project management complexity (5 participating companies, work in 5 different time zones), and the task seems quite challenging. This paper describes how the central verification team staffed by Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI), Toshiba Corporation, and IBM, produced on first silicon a cell BE microprocessor functional enough to boot an operating system and run applications

Keywords

formal verification; microprocessor chips; cell broadband engine microprocessor; directed random verification; hierarchical verification; trace-based verification; Collaborative tools; Computer architecture; DNA; Instruction sets; Microprocessors; Operating systems; Project management; Silicon; Supercomputers; Testing; Directed random verification; Hierarchical verification; Management; Processor reference model; Trace-based verification; Verification;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Design Automation Conference, 2006 43rd ACM/IEEE

Conference_Location

San Francisco, CA

ISSN

0738-100X

Print_ISBN

1-59593-381-6

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/DAC.2006.229282

Filename

1688816