Universal Verification Method and Environment for RISC Processor

Abstract

This thesis introduces Nokia Co-processor (COP) and universal verification method (UVM) based verification environment for it. COP scales from a very small one threaded 32-bit processors up to a 128-bit and 16 threaded processors. COP alone can be used for example as a direct memory access accelerator, but by adding hardware accelerators, the COP can turn into a very effective engine for many different applications. COP is a legacy IP from Nokia's previous system on chip (SoC) organization. Recently is has been updated to accommodate the needs of SoCs nowadays. Due to major changes, COP's legacy verification environment became unusable. Thus, a proper verification environment had to be developed. A proper verification environment is crucial for IP blocks, as it proves that block meets the set requirements. An IP block cannot be taken to new SoC designs if it is not properly verified. During this thesis project a new UVM based COP verification environment was created and it is introduced in this thesis. The environment has lots of verification IP's (VIP) and some of them are third party VIP's. Many of the parts are developed for this particular verification environment, such as: COP C++ reference model, COP instruction generator, Auxiliary unit VIP and COP assertion module. COP verification environment is created and lots of test cases are done. The verification is not completely done yet, though. More features must be covered to achieve verification closure. Most important result of developing a new verification environment for COP is that Nokia Co-processor is adopted to be used in new SoC designs and COP related development and research projects can be initiated.