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GLOSSARY : Functional Coverage

 

Functional Coverage is a description of “what” needs to happen in order for the functionality of a design to be exercised.

Examples:

            Packet transmitted with invalid crc

            Fifo overflow occurred

            Target abort occurred on PCI bus

 

Functional Coverage replaces the test description. A test description describes “how” to exercise a design in order to test functionality, while the functional coverage point does not describe the method to check the functionality, but rather just ensures that the functionality was exercised.

 

Functional coverage is used to verify that Random and focused tests effectively exercise the design. Functional Coverage requires “checkers” to observe that the functionality of the design was correct when it is exercised.

 

Functional Coverage was originated by IBM master inventor Shmuel Ur.

 

Methodical definition of functional coverage is the key to successful Constrained Random Functional Verification.

 

Once functional coverage has been defined it should be coded in the HVLs (“e”, SystemVerilog, or Vera) and should be tracked to completion. The process of using the results of functional coverage to drive the verification to completion is called “Coverage Driven Verification”. To effectively perform Coverage Driven Verification, participation in Ace Verification’s “Coverage Revealed” is highly recommended.


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