FPGA and SoC hardware verification flow and associated tools
As shown in Figure 2.1, the design verification progresses in parallel with the steps of the design flow to make sure that the design’s functionality is preserved as the design moves forward in its life cycle. It also ensures that the required key performance indicators (KPIs) are still met. The KPIs are set at the beginning of the product and system architecture definition. They fundamentally include the system clock frequency, the design’s size in terms of FPGA device resources occupation, and the design’s energy consumption, among other parameters that the design’s performance can be measured by.
The Vivado design environment allows users to perform an RTL behavioral simulation just after the design has been captured in HDL. Once the netlist has been generated, a post-synthesis or functional simulation can be performed and, following the design implementation, a timing simulation can be run...