Early Adopter release of UVM now available!

As I am sure most of you already know, Accellera has been working on a new industry-standard verification methodology. That new standard, the Universal Verification Methodology, is still a work in progress: there are many features that need to be defined and implemented before its first official release, such as a register abstraction package and OSCI-style TLM2 interfaces.

However, an Early Adopter release is now available if you wish to start using the UVM today. The UVM distribution kit contains a User Guide, a Reference Manual and an open source reference implementation of the work completed to date. It is supported by VCS (you will need version 2009.12-3 or later or version 2010.06 or later).

Synopsys is fully committed to supporting UVM. As such, a version of the UVM library, augmented to support additional features provided by VCS and DVE, will be included in the VCS distribution, starting with the 2009.12-7 and 2010.06-1 patch releases. It will have the same simple use model as VMM: just specify the “-ntb_opts uvm” command line argument and voila: the UVM library will be automatically compiled, ready to be used.

But if you can’t wait for these patch releases, you can download the Early Adopter kit from the Accellera website and use it immediately.

What about VMM?

Synopsys continues to be fully committed to VMM! All of the powerful applications that continue to make you more productive will be available on top of the UVM base class and methodology.

A UVM/VMM interoperability kit is available from Synopsys (and will be included in the mentioned VCS patch releases) that will make it easy to integrate UVM verification IP into a VMM testbench (or vice-versa). Contact your VMM support AC/CAE to obtain the UVM/VMM interoperability package.

What about support?

If you need help adopting UVM with VCS, our ACs will be more than happy to help you: they have many years of expertise supporting customers using advanced verification methodologies.

UVM is an Accellera effort. If you have a great idea for a new feature, you should submit your request to the Technical Subcommittee. Better yet! You should join the Subcommittee and help us implement it!