Renesas Brings Their Legacy Testbench Up to Speed Using the Cadence Verification Suite

Recently, Renesas Electronics Corporation faced a challenge. They were developing a new data conversion block, one that included an AHB bus bridge, which would be attached to a pre-existing DMA IP core. There was also a complicated finite state machine involved in this new block. Renesas didn’t have a whole lot of time on their hands—they needed a quick turnaround time, but only had a limited amount of engineers to accomplish that with. Because of that, they wanted to recycle a few in-house IPs and the verification of those IPs in their new project, despite having a team that wasn’t involved in those previous endeavors. Beyond that, Renesas also wanted to upgrade their verification methods with top-of-the-line tech. They wanted this verification environment to be a model which other IP core design projects could follow.

Quite a tall order—but it was easy with Cadence’s help.

Using Cadence tools and assistance from Cadence application engineers, Renesas was able to use Specman e’s native scalability to keep their old legacy testbench, even though there were over 45 component files and loads of internal connections across different components. After that, Renesas used the Cadence Xcelium Parallel Logic Simulator alongside the Cadence Indago Debug Analyzer App, taking advantage of the e language to help them build complex and scalable testbenches.

“To make the best use of the existing IP cores, renewing the legacy verification environment with the most advanced tools available proved to be an effective approach. Positive and collaborative relationships with Cadence played a key role to achieve it,” said Takahiro Ikenobe, director of the peripheral circuit design department at Renesas Electronics.

Using Cadence products gave Renesas a 77% savings in labor while still meeting Renesas’s standard of high quality. With the vManager platform, Renesas was able to reach 100% combined coverage, allowing them to completely reach verification signoff. Using Cadence’s tools to revitalize their old verification environment was a resounding success, and greatly helped Renesas make the most of their existing work—and we’re looking forward to further endeavors with them in the future.

To read the Renesas's full story, check here.