Releasing efficient beta cores to market early

Verification of modern processors is an expensive, time consuming, and challenging task. Although it is estimated that over half of total design time is spent on verification, we often find processors with bugs released into the market. This paper proposes an architecture that tolerates, not just the typically infrequent bugs found in current processors, but a significantly larger set of bugs. The objective is to allow for a much quicker time to market. We propose an architecture built around Beta Cores, which are cores partially verified. Our proposal intelligently activates and deactivates a simple single issue in-order Checker Core to verify a buggy superscalar out-of-order Beta Core. Our Beta Core Solution (BCS), which includes the Beta Core, the Checker Core, and the logic to detect potentially buggy situations consumes just 5% more power than the stand-alone Beta Core. We also show that performance is only slightly diminished with an average slowdown of 1.6%. By leveraging program signatures, our BCS only needs a simple in-order Checker Core, at half the frequency, to verify a complex 4 issue out-of-order Beta Core. The BCS architecture allows for a decrease in verification effort and thus a quicker time to market.