October 8, 2009 -- Compliance testing can reveal a great deal about whether an IP (intellectual-property) core functions according to the standard specifications, but does it really answer the most important question in the IP business, which is, Will passing compliance testing be enough to ensure that the IP will perform as expected in your chip? Long-term experience in providing IP to chip designers says that the answer to this question is "not quite."

Compliance testing alone cannot guarantee the quality or performance of IP for a number of reasons. This article, using the PCIe (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express) interface as an example, discusses the verification steps that engineers use in ensuring that the IP is of the highest quality. This process includes ensuring functional correctness, testing across corners, validating in silicon, passing compliance, and selecting an IP with advanced, built-in capabilities. All of these steps require a great deal of effort, specifically from the IP vendor.

By Navraj Nandra. (Nandra is Director of Product Marketing for the mixed-signal products at Synopsys, Inc.)