Codasip and TVS Deliver Advanced RISC-V Verification Solutions

Brno, Czech Republic – March 10^th 2017 – Codasip, a leading RISC-V processor IP provider, and T&VS (Test and Verification Solutions), a leading verification services provider for semiconductor IP, hardware and software, today announced a broad collaboration to accelerate the verification of products based on the Codix-Bk series of RISC-V compliant processor cores.

The partnership ensures companies can be confident selecting the precise RISC-V configuration they require. The combination of Codasip’s IP generation technology and the highly-automated T&VS validated verification flows means that even the most specific configurations can be quickly verified to the highest standards. Such a capability will be essential to fully exploit the flexible, open-source RISC-V instruction set architecture (ISA).

“I am extremely pleased to see this robust solution coming into place.”, said Rick O’Connor, Executive Director of the RISC-V Foundation. “It is further evidence of the healthy and rapid growth of the RISC-V ecosystem.”

Interest in the RISC-V ISA has grown incredibly quickly and the principal advantages for design teams are the non-proprietary nature of the ISA, the availability of implementations and infrastructure from a range of suppliers and the design freedom allowed by the RISC-V standard.

However this flexibility poses a challenge for verification. Since a wide range of function/power/performance variants are possible, there is no off-the-shelf set of RISC-V validation tests, no single verification testbench, nor even a single verification flow, to fully verify an implementation.

“For customers that are now committing to RISC-V’s verification and validation have become a top concern, and rightly so.”, said Karel Masarik, CEO, Codasip, “Codasip’s partnership with T&VS allows our customers to benefit from the outstanding capabilities of T&VS as a verification company and the RISC-V UVM environment automation capabilities intrinsic to our IP.”

RISC-V verification becomes a challenge as particular functionality/performance combination that a design requires is not available in an off-the-shelf configuration. In these circumstances someone has to produce a variant of the design (RTL + Software Development Kit (SDK)) and verify it. This is clearly a challenge for RISC-V providers, whether they are Silicon IP (SIP) companies or service organizations within large companies.

“In order to thoroughly and quickly verify a new variant of the RISC-V it is crucial to have a strategy that covers the whole RISC-V family, both at the architectural and micro-architectural levels.” said Mike Bartley, CEO, T&VS, “Working with Codasip removes the guesswork from our strategy since they are able to generate new variants of the cores very rapidly, meaning that we are prepared for just about anything.”

Learn more about RISC-V IP and Verification at Embedded World visit Codasip (Booth # 3-627) and T&VS (Booth # 3-555).

About Codasip

Codasip delivers leading-edge processor IP technology that provides the advantages of industry standard processor IP with the ability to optimize for your unique application. Codasip’s unique model-based processor IP, and application analysis technology, makes processor customization and optimization available to any design team. As a founding member of the RISC-V foundation (riscv.org) and long term supplier of LLVM and GNU based processor solutions Codasip is committed to open standards for embedded processors. Formed in 2006 and headquartered in Brno, Czech Republic, Codasip currently has offices in the US and Europe. More information on Codasip’s products and services is available at www.codasip.com.

About T&VS

T&VS (Test and Verification Solutions Ltd.) provides services and products to organisations developing complex products in the microelectronics and embedded systems industries. Such organisations use T&VS to verify their hardware and software products, employ industry best practice and manage peaks in development and testing programmes. T&VS’ embedded software testing services includes onsite/offshore testing support including assistance with safety certification and security testing. T&VS hardware verification services include onsite/offshore verification support and training in advanced verification methodologies. T&VS also offers Verification IPs and its own Verification (EDA) signoff tool. See www.testandverification.com.