Co-Verification of Hardware and Software for ARM SoC Design 

by Jason Andrews

Why is this book important?

This book is the first to document and teach important information about the verification technique known as Hardware/Software Co-Verification. Traditional embedded system design has evolved into single chip designs that are pushing past 1M logic gates and headed toward 10M gates. In this era of SoC design, chips now include microprocessors and require software to be developed before hardware fabrication. To effectively develop quality products in a timely manner engineers must be armed with necessary information to make educated decisions about which tools and methodology to deploy. SoC verification requires a mix of expertise from the disciplines of microprocessor and computer architecture, logic design and simulation, and C and assembly language embedded software. Individual books exist in each area, but until now the relevant information and how it all fits together has not been available. The book provides unique, in depth information about how co-verification really works, how to be successful using it, and the pitfalls to avoid.

The book also contains an added bonus. It covers important information about developing and verifying SoC designs using ARM microprocessor cores. In the last few years ARM has achieved a dominant market position in the 32-bit embedded microprocessor space and has become the de facto standard for many market segments. This book illustrates the concepts of HW/SW co-verification using concrete ARM SoC examples and provides useful information about co-verification of designs utilizing an ARM microprocessor.

The book is featured on the ARM Website.

Audience

The primary audience is the engineer looking to develop best practice techniques for SoC verification of both hardware and software to not only increase confidence in the design, but also complete verification in a shorter period of time. Both hardware and software engineers will benefit from a better understanding of each discipline. Project managers will also benefit from an understanding of the interaction between hardware and software teams and how to encourage collaboration between the two teams. Engineers involved in ARM SoC design projects will also benefit from the information in the book.

Prerequisite Knowledge

Readers should have some knowledge of embedded system design including systems with microprocessors and software. Readers with a hardware engineering background should be familiar with digital logic design and verification. A working knowledge of Verilog or VHDL is useful as well as familiarity with common simulation tools. Readers with a software background should be proficient in C and assembly language programming and should be familiar with embedded system concepts. Verilog is used to present concepts and examples, but everything applies equally to VHDL.

About HW/SW Co-Verification

HW/SW Co-Verification is about making sure embedded system software works well with hardware before chips and boards are available. It’s also about making sure hardware has been designed correctly to successfully run the software. For applications where time-to-market and project cost are important co-verification saves time and reduces the risk of costly hardware design errors.

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