0-In revamps verification products

Santa Cruz, Calif. - Revamping its assertion-based verification tools, 0-In Design Automation Inc. will introduce the Archer Verification system this week, offering three configurations aimed at different methodologies. The tools incorporate and replace the individual tools in 0-In's current Assertion-Based Verification (ABV) tool suite, the company said.

The offerings are Archer-SF, which provides a block-level, static formal verification flow; Archer-CDV, which supports a coverage-driven verification flow for system-level design; and Archer-ABV, which includes all technology from the other two configurations and adds dynamic formal verification.

"Technology is more than just the tools," said Richard Ho, co-founder and chief architect at 0-In (www.0-in.com). "What we're doing here is taking engineered methodologies and putting them together with sets of tools and giving them to the customers."

The new configurations were developed based on "best practices" that 0-In has learned from its customers, Ho said. "We're automating a great deal of the methodology that customers need."

Ultimately, Archer will subsume existing 0-In products such as 0-In Check, Search, Confirm, Checklist, and the CheckerWare monitors, said Steve White, president and chief executive officer at 0-In (San Jose, Calif.). "These products will remain on the price list for customers who have licenses and want to renew, but all customers will be encouraged to upgrade to Archer," he said.

Archer-SF is aimed at customers wishing to perform static formal verification before a simulation environment is available. The tool's capabilities include automatic RTL checks, clock domain verification, CheckerWare verification intellectual property and static formal verification. This product includes technology from 0-In Checklist and 0-In Confirm.

Archer-SF supports automatic design checks and user-specified assertions. The formal static verification engines that analyze them produce counterexamples. Metrics offer feedback on the quality of the assertions and the amount of formal analysis done.

Archer-CDV provides automatic static checks and user-specified assertions running during simulation. It supports a flow in which metrics gauge the effectiveness of each step in a test plan.

Like Archer-SF, Archer-CDV includes automatic RTL checks, clock domain verification and CheckerWare. Added to that list are unified structural coverage, an assertion compiler, assertion manager and debugging assistance. Archer-CDV includes technology from 0-In's existing Check product.

The Archer-ABV tool includes everything available from 0-In. It encompasses all the Archer-SF and Archer-CDV capabilities and adds dynamic formal verification from the 0-In Search product. This technology is intended to identify tough corner cases that might be missed in simulation environments.

The Archer configurations are available now. Archer-CDV starts at $50,000, Archer-SF at $60,000 and Archer-ABV at $120,000.

See related chart