An effective and flexible approach to functional verification of processor families

Functional verification is one of the most critical stages of microprocessor design. Its goal is to achieve the maximum level of confidence in the conformance of a processor design to its specification. A powerful methodology is necessary in order to cope with the major technical challenge which is posed by functional verification of a processor, and which stems from the vast state space that must be verified. This need becomes even more crucial when faced with the concurrent verification of several processor families. We describe a strategy for verification of several designs, which allows for maximum sharing of resources and knowledge among the verification projects, thus resulting in a significant increase in the efficiency of verification and in an associated reduction in the time required to verify a new design.