Verification of WLAN PHY IP

Executive Summary

Our customer is an industry leader in design, development and creation of cutting edge mobile platforms and semiconductors across the broad spectrum of wireless technologies.

The SoC is a single-chip dual-band 2.4GHz/5GHz IEEE802.11a/b/g/n device with integrated power amplifier (PA) that reduces footprint and increases battery life for mobile devices. Advanced features extend range and performance in multi-radio platforms. Key benefits also include enhanced Bluetooth-WLAN coexistence, high level of feature integration and small package size. Targeted applications are Cellular handsets, Handheld consumer-electronics devices (Gaming, Portable multimedia players (PMP) and Portable navigation devices (PND)), and Digital cameras and digital photo frames.

With a view to retain its leadership in consumer electronics market and improve its position in the global arena, Customer was seeking a long-term offshore partner who could help it meet its objective of improved margins on its products through cost-effective offshore solutions.

Customer engaged eInfochips to develop the test bench and verify the Wireless LAN PHY IP. eInfochips team successfully developed constrained-random fully OVM compliant verification environment as per customer’s feature requirements while facilitating everything legacy test bench was able to do. Using robust verification environment having randomization capability eInfochips discovered many bugs in already taped out RTL.

The Customer

Our customer is unique in its ability to deliver state-of-the-art platforms, integrating mobile multimedia and connectivity for GSM, EDGE, WCDMA, HSPA etc. The customer is a key supplier to four of the top five handset manufacturers, which together represent about 80 percent of global handset shipments, as well as to other exciting industry leaders, including mobile operators and device manufacturers.

The Challenge

  • To deal with dynamically changing requirements and ambiguous specification
  • To integrate SystemC modules in SystemVerilog verification environment
  • Development of MAC Scoreboard
  • To sync up with other teams at multiple geographic locations with different cultures

The Solution

eInfochips team worked on the following aspects as part of the verification effort:

  • Verification of IEEE 802.11 PHY IP using directed and random approach
  • Developed constrained-random fully OVM compliant test bench as per customer’s feature requirements supporting legacy test bench as well
  • Development of test plans, test cases, and functional coverage implementation
  • Performed simulation, regression, bug reporting, and customer support

Technology

  • Industry: Communication – Wireless
  • Technology: IEEE 802.11(a/b/g/n), APB
  • Methodology: OVM
  • Languages: SystemVerilog, SystemC
  • Tools: Incisive 9.2, Simvision, CVS

The Benefit

  • A complete methodology proven test bench with more randomization capability facilitated finding of bugs quickly
  • Unearthed as many as 20 bugs in already taped out RTL through running new OVM test bench which customer could not get on legacy test bench
  • The OVM based verification environment made future enhancement easy to manage due to its scalable architecture