Chapter 1 mentor vip altera edition, Advantages of using bfms and monitors, Implementation of bfms – Altera Mentor Verification IP Altera Edition AMBA AXI4-Lite User Manual

Page 21

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Mentor Verification IP AE AXI4-Lite User Guide, V10.3

21

April 2014

Chapter 1

Mentor VIP Altera Edition

The Mentor VIP AE provides BFMs to simulate the behavior and to facilitate IP verification.
The Mentor VIP AE includes the following interface:

AXI4-Lite BFM with master, slave, and inline monitor interfaces

Advantages of Using BFMs and Monitors

Using the Mentor VIP AE has the following advantages:

Accelerates the verification process by providing key verification test bench
components

Provides BFM components that implement the AMBA AXI Protocol Specification,
which serves as a reference for the protocol

Provides a full suite of configurable assertion checking in each BFM

Implementation of BFMs

The Mentor VIP AE BFMs, master, slave, and inline monitor components are implemented in
SystemVerilog. Also included are wrapper components so that you can use the BFMs in VHDL
verification environments with simulators that support mixed-language simulation.

The Mentor VIP AE provides a set of APIs for each BFM that you can use to construct,
instantiate, control, and query signals in all BFM components. Your test programs must use
only these public access methods and events to communicate with each BFM. To ensure
support in current and future releases, your test programs must use the standard set of APIs to
interface with the BFMs. Nonstandard APIs and user-generated interfaces cannot be supported
in future releases.

The test program drives the stimulus to the DUTs and determines whether the behavior of the
DUTs is correct by analyzing the responses. The BFMs translate the test program stimuli
(transactions), creating the signaling for the AMBA AXI Protocol Specification. The BFMs also
check for protocol compliance by firing an assertion when a protocol error is observed.

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