Verification Projects: Planning to Closure addresses the challenges of functional verification in the digital semiconductor market today. It presents best practices by alternately looking at the verification problem as a complete system, and expounding on the best practices for executing with the myriad of available verification technologies. As a result, the reader gains not only a sufficient knowledge to use each technology intelligently, but more importantly, knowledge of when each technology can be used most effectively, and how to combine the various technologies to provide the best verification solution for their project.

All of this information is conveyed within the framework of the leading edge plan to closure methodology. This methodology conveys three important messages:

1. Effective planning of the verification effort using well-defined measurable objectives to gauge the project status as it proceeds. It is shown that this planning is valuable for tracking and reacting to project status, (of more importance, and far more emphasized in the management book). Furthermore, and, more importantly here, we show that planning helps ensure that the right verification environment is built the first time using optimal tool and resource selections. We also show that appropriate planning significantly reduces the amount of effort put into verification, (currently estimated to be about 70% of the complete project effort).
2. By using appropriate horizontal re-use methodologies, project quality, productivity, and predictability can be greatly enhanced. These methodologies include how to best design and package verification intellectual property so that it can be re-used from project to project.
3. By using appropriate vertical re-use methodologies, project quality, productivity, and predictability can be greatly enhanced. These methodologies are discussed including how to best design and package verification intellectual property so that projects can benefit by effectively using each level of verification as building blocks for successive levels throughout the project. For example, how to best re-use of block level environments at the chip level, how to best architect environments so that they can be easily used in both simulators and emulators, and how to design environments so that they can easily facilitate system level modeling, RTL verification and software verification.

It is important to note that while this book will touch on all available verification technologies, it is not meant to be an in-depth training manual on any one technology. That level of material has been well covered in other books. The intent of this book is to teach the user a fundamental understanding of each technology, teach the user how to best employ each technology and teach the user how to execute most effectively with these technologies using a plan to closure methodology.