A Comparative Study on the Effectiveness of Automated Assertions Versus Traditional Methods in a Project Design Flow

摘要

Assertions are generally considered to be valuable. However, they have not been widely adopted for a variety of reasons, including the expense of writing and maintaining a separate assertion model, and the difficulty of incorporating assertions into existing design flows. This paper examines the use of an automated assertion tool to make assertions practical in RTL design flows. We examine and compare results of three design projects that used automated assertions in parallel with traditional design. We then study the effects on the design, verification, and flow and compare overall project productivity and quality using each method.