Accelerators and emulators: can they become the platform of choice for hardware verification?

Abstract

The verification of modern hardware designs requires an enormous amount of simulation resources. A growing trend in the industry is the use of accelerators and emulators to support this effort. Because they are very fast compared to software simulators, accelerators and emulators provide the opportunity to significantly shorten the verification cycle. However, for this to happen challenges in all main aspects of the verification process (test-generation, checking, coverage and debugging) will first need to be solved. In this panel session, experts from both academia and industry (EDA vendors and users) will come together to present their ideas and experiences on how to best utilize accelerators and emulators to enhance the verification process.