The focus of Assertion-Based Design is three-fold:
*How to specify assertions;
*How to create and adopt a methodology that supports assertion-based design (predominately for RTL design);
*What to do with the assertions and methodology once you have them.

To support these three over-arching goals, the authors showcase multiple forms of assertion specification: Accellera Open Verification Library (OVL), Accellera Property Specification Language (PSL), and Accellera SystemVerilog.

The recommendations and claims the authors make in this book are based on their combined actual experiences in applying an assertion-based methodology to real design and verification as well as their work in developing industry assertion standards.

This book presents formal testplanning guidelines with examples focused on creating assertion-based verification IP. It demonstrates a systematic process for formal specification and formal testplanning, and also demonstrates effective use of assertions languages beyond the traditional language construct discussions Note that there many books published on assertion languages (such as SystemVerilog assertions and PSL). Yet, none of them discuss the important process of testplanning and using these languages to create verification IP. This is the first book published on this subject.

Chapter 3 Specifying RTL Properties 61 3. 1 Definitions and concepts 62 62 3. 1. 1 Property 3. 1. 2 Events 65 3. 2 Property classification 65 Safety versus liveness 66 3. 2. 1 3. 2. 2 Constraint versus assertion 67 3. 2. 3 Declarative versus procedural 67 3. 3 RTL assertion specification techniques 68 RTL invariant assertions 69 3. 3. 1 3. 3. 2 Declaring properties with PSL 72 RTL cycle related assertions 73 3. 3. 3 3. 3. 4 PSL and default clock declaration 74 3. 3. 5 Specifying sequences 75 3. 3. 6 Specifying eventualities 80 3. 3. 7 PSL built-in functions 82 3. 4Pragma-based assertions 82 3. 5 SystemVerilog assertions 84 3. 5. 1 Immediate assertions 84 3. 5. 2Concurrent assertions 86 3. 5. 3 System functions 95 3. 6 PCI property specification example 96 3. 6. 1 PCI overview 96 3. 7 Summary 102 Chapter 4 PLI-Based Assertions 103 4. 1 Procedural assertions 104 4. 1. 1 A simple PLI assertion 105 4. 1. 2 Assertions within a simulation time slot 108 4. 1. 3 Assertions across simulation time slots 111 4. 1. 4 False firing across multiple time slots 116 4. 2 PLI-based assertion library 118 4. 2. 1 Assert quiescent state 119 4. 3 Summary 123 Chapter 5 Functional Coverage 125 5. 1 Verification approaches 126 5. 2 Understanding coverage 127 5. 2. 1 Controllability versus observability 128 5. 2.

There is much excitement in the design and verification community about assertion-based design. The question is, who should study assertion-based design? The emphatic answer is, both design and verification engineers. What may be unintuitive to many design engineers is that adding assertions to RTL code will actually reduce design time, while better documenting design intent. Every design engineer should read this book! Design engineers that add assertions to their design will not only reduce the time needed to complete a design, they will also reduce the number of interruptions from verification engineers to answer questions about design intent and to address verification suite mistakes. With design assertions in place, the majority of the interruptions from verification engineers will be related to actual design problems and the error feedback provided will be more useful to help identify design flaws. A design engineer who does not add assertions to the RTL code will spend more time with verification engineers explaining the design functionality and intended interface requirements, knowledge that is needed by the verification engineer to complete the job of testing the design.

Assertion-based IP is much more than a comprehensive set of related assertions. It is a full-fledged reusable and configurable transaction-level verification component, which is used to detect both interesting and incorrect behaviors. Upon detecting interesting or incorrect behavior, the assertion-based IP alerts other verification components within a simulation environment, which are responsible for taking appropriate action. The focus of this book is to bring the assertion discussion up to a higher level and introduce a process for creating effective, reusable, assertion-based IP, which easily integrates with the user s existing verification environment, in other words the testbench infrastructure.

The guiding principles promoted in this book when creating an assertion-based IP monitor are:

• modularity assertion-based IP should have a clear separation between detection and action
  
• clarity assertion-based IP should be written initially focusing on capturing intent (versus optimizations)

A unique feature of this book is the fully worked out, detailed examples. The concepts presented in the book are drawn from the authors experience developing assertion-based IP, as well as general assertion-based techniques. Creating Assertion-Based IP is an important resource for design and verification engineers.

From the Foreword:

Creating Assertion-Based IP " reduces to process the creation of one of the most valuable kinds of VIP: assertion-based VIP This book will serve as a valuable reference for years to come."
Andrew Piziali, Sr. Design Verification Engineer
Co-Author, ESL Design and Verification: A Prescription for Electronic System Level Methodology
Author, Functional Verification Coverage Measurement and Analysis"

Chapter 3 Specifying RTL Properties 61 3. 1 Definitions and concepts 62 62 3. 1. 1 Property 3. 1. 2 Events 65 3. 2 Property classification 65 Safety versus liveness 66 3. 2. 1 3. 2. 2 Constraint versus assertion 67 3. 2. 3 Declarative versus procedural 67 3. 3 RTL assertion specification techniques 68 RTL invariant assertions 69 3. 3. 1 3. 3. 2 Declaring properties with PSL 72 RTL cycle related assertions 73 3. 3. 3 3. 3. 4 PSL and default clock declaration 74 3. 3. 5 Specifying sequences 75 3. 3. 6 Specifying eventualities 80 3. 3. 7 PSL built-in functions 82 3. 4Pragma-based assertions 82 3. 5 SystemVerilog assertions 84 3. 5. 1 Immediate assertions 84 3. 5. 2Concurrent assertions 86 3. 5. 3 System functions 95 3. 6 PCI property specification example 96 3. 6. 1 PCI overview 96 3. 7 Summary 102 Chapter 4 PLI-Based Assertions 103 4. 1 Procedural assertions 104 4. 1. 1 A simple PLI assertion 105 4. 1. 2 Assertions within a simulation time slot 108 4. 1. 3 Assertions across simulation time slots 111 4. 1. 4 False firing across multiple time slots 116 4. 2 PLI-based assertion library 118 4. 2. 1 Assert quiescent state 119 4. 3 Summary 123 Chapter 5 Functional Coverage 125 5. 1 Verification approaches 126 5. 2 Understanding coverage 127 5. 2. 1 Controllability versus observability 128 5. 2.