Case Study: Verification Framework of Samsung Reconfigurable Processor

Abstract

The SRP (Samsung Reconfigurable Processor) is a high-performance, low-power digital signal processor that supports two different operating modes: the VLIW (very long instruction word) mode for running control-intensive code and the CGA (coarse-grained reconfigurable array) mode for running computation-intensive code. In the SRP, an application starts in the VLIW mode, and then may switch back and forth many times between the CGA mode and the VLIW mode throughout its lifetime. In order to support this switching back and forth seamlessly, our C compiler for SRP is capable of generating an executable binary that contain codes for both VLIW and CGA modes. The unusual complexity of SRP verification originates from the unconventional processor architecture/micro-architecture and the complexity of our compiler. In order to manage the unconventional burden that confronts SRP verification engineers, we have aimed to build a scalable verification framework that is both flexible and efficient. In this paper, we report our experience so far, including our effort to be systematic and thorough in our approach.