Initial Release of the UVM Now Available!

As Richard Goering just reported, the Accellera VIP Technical Subcommittee (TSC) this morning posted the first release of the Universal Verification Methodology (UVM), tagged "1.0 Early Adopter" since there is a bit of new technology beyond the OVM 2.1.1 baseline. This is great news for the verification community; at last we have a single library and methodology around which we can rally.

I've been somewhat of a gadfly in terms of the TSC, mostly because there were several points at which they seemed in danger of veering off into developing a completely new library and methodology. In the end, they acknowledged the technical excellence and broad adoption of the OVM by incorporating it almost entirely unchanged into the UVM. This is also great news for the verification community.

I have to admit that I was one of the doubters who questioned whether the diverse factions within the TSC would ever agree on the UVM. While I was not a member of the group, I've had extensive standards experience in the past and know how challenging it can be to get a final product (specification, source code, other documentation, etc.) released. I congratulate the TSC on their accomplishment.

So where do we go from here? I fully expect all EDA vendors to follow Cadence's lead in announcing tool support for the UVM. Although the changes from the OVM to the UVM are minor, it will take a bit of time for all the VIP vendors and users with current OVM-based projects to make the transition. I do expect that most or all users will move to the UVM over the next six months or so.

There is no shortage of ideas for enhancements to the UVM 1.0 EA release; Richard mentions some of them in his post and the Community Contributions area on OVM World contains many creative and powerful extensions to the OVM that can be easily adapted for the UVM. I imagine that the Accellera TSC members will have their hands full for a long time to come with all the great ideas.

I strongly recommend that you all download the UVM library and documentation kit; it will look comfortably familiar to OVM 2.1.1 and you can use it with confidence. Please join me in acknowledging this major accomplishment from Accellera and in leveraging this new standard to drive the industry's next chapter in functional verification.

Tom A.

The truth is out there...sometimes it's in a blog.