San Jose, Calif. - IC design debug software vendor Novas Software Inc. this week will release an add-on module for its Debussy and Verdi debug environments that lets users debug both HDLs and the automated testbench languages of Synopsys Inc. and Verisity Ltd.

Scott Sandler, president and CEO of Novas, said the nBench add-on lets Debussy and Verdi support Verisity's "e" and Synopsys' Vera hardware verification languages (HVLs). Designers using those testbench generation tools previously have relied on Verisity's and Synopsys' built-in testbench debuggers and have used a separate debugger, such as Debussy, to work with Verilog or VHDL code, Sandler said. With nBench, users of testbench generation tools can determine whether a functional error exists in a design or whether there was simply an error in testbench generation or testbench generation setup, he said.

Module's capabilities

Users of nBench can browse the source code of testbench programs; examine and annotate event information onto the testbench structure; and traverse between HDL and HVL code across block, chip and system hierarchies. The add-on applies debug features, such as language tracing, event analysis and active annotation, to testbench debug in a manner consistent with design debug, Sandler said. The testbench code is stored in the Debussy database.

That database and a second one can be accessed for "time-ordered dump information that occurs during simulation," Sandler said. "When you are using the viewers in Debussy, you are accessing both of those databases. You can also annotate the values at any point in time onto that source code. It ties it all together and makes it really easy to see what is happening at a given point in the design."

The support for e and Vera augments Novas' existing support of the OpenVera Assertions and SystemVerilog languages. Support for PSL will be available shortly, and support for SystemC is on the Novas road map, Sandler said.

Novas' nBench is available immediately and is included free with Verdi and Debussy system bundles. The product may also be purchased as an option for modular Debussy licenses at $4,000 for a one-year subscription.