Zocalo Tech intros assertion-based verification capabilities to improve IP and electronic design quality

AUSTIN, USA: Zocalo Tech Inc., an EDA company focused on assertion-based verification (ABV) productivity software, has added four new capabilities to its Zazz product family: Zazz Bird Dog, Zazz Metrics, Zazz Visual SVA and user-defined assertion library support.

The new options simplify and support the adoption of an ABV methodology to improve electronic design and Intellectual Property (IP) quality and increase verification productivity.

What’s new
* Zazz Bird Dog analyzes the design and rank orders the most important candidate signals where assertions should be added. For legacy code, performing a manual assessment of assertion requirements for a complex functional block can take days versus minutes with Bird Dog.

* Zazz Metrics provide the project team with an on-going progress report about the quantity and quality of the assertions added versus the target. Historical reports on completed functional blocks provide a baseline for measuring the value of using assertions to reduce debug time.

* Zazz Visual SVA provides the ability to create and debug all levels of assertion complexity without learning the SVA language. Visual SVA completely eliminates the long learning time typically associated with becoming proficient writing properties with the SVA language. Visual SVA also provides dynamic controllability of assertions, automatic bind file management and documentation.

* Zazz Assertion Library Support makes using assertion libraries fast and easy while providing automatic bind file management and documentation. In addition to supporting OVL and libraries from the major EDA vendors, user-defined assertion libraries can now be added to Zazz.

“Zazz addresses the major issues that have kept ABV from wide scale acceptance: Where do I add assertions? What is the cost for adding assertions? How do I cost effectively move from an ad hoc use of simple assertions to the systematic use of more complex and temporal assertions?” said Khalil Shalish, CTO of Zocalo Tech.

“Bird Dog identifies the most useful placement of assertions and allows the project to scope the level of work for adequately populating a design with assertions. Visual SVA enables the use of more useful and powerful SVAs at all levels of complexity via an easy to learn intuitive process. Assertion debug is provided on an automated interactive basis. This frees the user to focus on describing the intent of the design rather than the complexities of the SVA language.”