Failures And Verification Solutions Related To Untimed Paths In Socs

A fundamental manifestation of the system-level nature of the modern SOC has been in the explosion of untimed paths on a chip. A single chip is no longer a textbook synchronous entity. Thanks to the use of complex design methodologies like asynchronous clock domains, interacting dynamic power domains, aggressive dynamic reset schemes, the wide-spread use of timing exceptions, GALS etc., large swaths of a chip interact asynchronously. Their analysis is outside the sweet-spot of logic simulation + STA work-horse. Naturally, associated chip failures are being encountered in increased numbers and have acquired an insidious aura because they are detected late in the design process with adverse effects on budgets and business models. This urgent problem has driven rapid innovation in EDA, leading to a static verification framework comprising of a synthesis of semantic analysis and formal methods that enables sign-off level confidence for failure modes arising from such untimed paths. The success of this new class of EDA tools is evidenced, for example, by the fact that every single SOC today is signed-off using a dedicated clock-domain-crossing verification tool. This is a new paradigm in that these new EDA tools are targeted solutions for critical failure modes, representing a change from the incumbent practice of trying to make generic tools like simulators work for any type of design failure. Such a solution-oriented approach is a template to mitigate verification complexity arising from other failure modes.