DV specialization questions

1. Difference between IP/Susystem/SoC verification?
   • Functional verification is making sure requirements are met and not verifying the HDL
   • We are verifying whether the HDL implementation is meeting the requirements specification and not the HDL implementation itself
   • 1. Because HDL implementation can be anything
   • SoC/SubSystem verification is to ensure the connectivity requirements are met using the use cases
   • Focus is on the end use cases as we assume the individual Ips come in verified and criteria we look for the all the interconnect between the Ips is satisfied
   • Another way to look at SoC/Subsystem verification is what is new logic coming in
   • All the IPs are coming in pre-verified it’s only the interconnect that is coming in new
   • So, interconnect will be primary goal of verification and way its done is using the use cases

2. What is the difference between the black box vs. Whitebox verification?

Functional verification is mainly black box verification. That is, it checks whether the overall requirements are met. For example, multiplier design we just care whether its giving result of multiplication correctly in black box verification.

Whereas in whitebox we also look at the implementation. Same requirements can be implemented in different ways. A multiplier can be shift and add or Booth’s algorithm implementation. Let’s say there is pipeline in multiplier and we start looking at what needs to happen in each stage of pipeline and start checking that as well then, then we are doing whitebox verification. Whitebox verification is also verifying specific micro-architecture implementation of requirements and not just the requirements.