Testbench builder, system, device and method having agent loopback functionality

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9778315-B2
Application number	US-201514617699-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 9, 2015
Priority date	Nov 14, 2014
Publication date	Oct 3, 2017
Grant date	Oct 3, 2017

Abstract

A testbench for testing a device under test (DUT), wherein the testbench has a verification environment including a reference model, a scoreboard and a customized agent for each interface that the DUT needs to receive input from and/or transmit output on. The testbench system is able to be generated by a testbench builder that automatically creates a scoreboard, a reference model, a dispatcher and generic agents including generic drivers, loopback ports, sequencers and/or generic monitors for each interface and then automatically customize the generic agents based on their corresponding interface such that the agents meet the requirements of the interface for the DUT.

First claim

We claim:

1. A testbench builder device comprising:
a non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon a testbench system for testing a device under test, the testbench system comprising:
a plurality of agents coupled with the device under test and configured to perform one of outputting testing data to and inputting testing data from the device under test, wherein each agent of the plurality of agents comprises one or more loopback ports within a verification environment,
wherein the plurality of agents comprise: a first agent associated with at least one portion of the testing data; and a second agent associated with at least another portion of the testing data,
wherein the at least one portion is dependent on the at least another portion of the testing data with respect to testing the device under test, and
further wherein a loopback port of the first agent is coupled with a loopback port of the second agent for transmitting dependency data between the first agent and the second agent.

2. The testbench builder device of claim 1 , wherein outputting the testing data comprises outputting one or more transactions to the device under test and inputting the testing data comprises inputting one or more device responses to the transactions from the device under test.

3. The testbench builder device of claim 2 , wherein a second loopback ports of the first agent is coupled with a second loopback ports of the second agent such that the first agent and the second agent are coupled to each other via two connections.

4. The testbench builder device of claim 3 , wherein the first agent is coupled with one or more additional agents of the plurality of agents via loopback ports of the first agent and loopback ports of the one or more additional agents.

5. A testbench builder device comprising:
a non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon a testbench system for testing operation of a device under test, the testbench system comprising:
a plurality of agents each comprising one or more loopback ports within a verification environment, coupled with the device under test and configured to perform one of outputting testing data to and inputting testing data from the device under test, wherein each agent of the plurality of agents is associated with a portion of the testing data;
wherein at least one portion of the testing data is dependent on at least one other portion of the testing data with respect to testing the device under test, and further wherein a loopback port of multiple loopback ports of a first agent of the plurality of agents that is associated with the at least one portion of the testing data is coupled with a loopback port of multiple loopback ports of a second agent of the plurality of agents that is associated with the at least one other portion of the testing data for transmitting dependency data between the first agent and the second agent,
wherein a connection coupling two loopback ports has a traffic direction configured to cause an input loopback port of the loopback ports of a receiving agent, that is associated with the testing data that is dependent, to receive the dependency data from an output loopback port of the loopback ports of a transmitting agent associated with the testing data that is depended upon.

6. The testbench builder device of claim 4 , wherein the dependency data is based one of the transactions and the device responses.

7. The testbench builder device of claim 6 , wherein each of the agents associated with testing data that is dependent is configured to continuously poll an associated input lookout port for the dependency data and each of the agents associated with testing data that is depended upon is configured to automatically send the dependency data on an associated output lookout port.

8. The testbench builder device of claim 7 , further comprising a dispatcher including an agent table and coupled with a reference model and a scoreboard, wherein the dispatcher is configured to:
input information comprising a copy of each of the one or more transactions and the one or more device responses to the transactions;
identify whether each portion of the information is one of the copy of each of the one or more transactions or one of the device responses based on the agent table; and
route each portion of the information identified as one of the copy of each of the one or more transactions to the reference model and each portion of the information identified as one of the one or more device responses to the scoreboard.

9. The testbench builder device of claim 8 , wherein each agent of the plurality of agents further comprises a monitor configured to sample the transactions and the device responses on an interface between the agent and the device under test, to automatically forward sampled transactions and sampled device responses to the dispatcher and to send the dependency data.

10. The testbench builder device of claim 9 , wherein each agent of the plurality of agents further comprises a sequencer configured to receive the dependency data and to produce one of the transactions for testing the device under test, and further wherein each of the plurality of agents further comprise a generic driver coupled with the sequencer, wherein the driver is configured to receive the transaction from the sequencer.

11. The testbench builder device of claim 10 , wherein each agent of the plurality of agents further comprises a transporter coupled with the monitor and the driver and coupled with the device under test via the interface, wherein the transporter is configured to perform a handshake protocol with the device under test over the interface based on a class of the interface.

12. The testbench builder device of claim 11 , wherein the device under test is a virtual emulation of an electronic device.

13. A testbench builder device for generating a testbench for verification of a device under test, the testbench builder device comprising a non-transitory computer readable medium and configured to perform a method comprising:
reading an interface configuration file associated with the device under test and identifying a plurality of interfaces associated with the device under test defined in the interface configuration file; and
generating a verification environment including a plurality of agents coupled with the device under test, wherein there is an agent of the plurality of agents for each interface of the interfaces in the interface configuration file, wherein the plurality of agents each comprise one or more loopback ports and each agent of the plurality of agents is configured to perform one of outputting testing data to and inputting testing data from the device under test, wherein each agent of the agents is associated with a portion of the testing data;
wherein the plurality of agents comprise: a first agent associated with at least one portion of the testing data; and a second agent associated with at least another portion of the testing data,
wherein the at least one portion is dependent on the at least another portion of the testing data with respect to testing the device under test, and
further wherein a loopback port of the first agent is coupled with a loopback port of the second agent for transmitting dependency data between the first agent and the second agent.

14. The testbench builder device of claim 13 , wherein outputting the testing data comprises outputting one or more transactions to the device under test and inputting the testing data comprises inputting one or more device responses to the transactions from the device under test.

15. The

Assignees

• Cavium Inc

Inventors

• Siva Nimalan
• Han Keqin Kenneth
• Patel Saurin
• Balan Mohan

Classifications

• G01R31/318314

  Tools, e.g. program interfaces, test suite, test bench, simulation hardware, test compiler, test program languages (simulation software G01R31/318357; emulators G06F11/261) · CPC title

• G01R31/3177 Primary

  Testing of logic operation, e.g. by logic analysers · CPC title

• H04L43/50

  Testing arrangements · CPC title

• G06F30/398

  Design verification or optimisation, e.g. using design rule check [DRC], layout versus schematics [LVS] or finite element methods [FEM] (optical proximity correction [OPC] design processes G03F1/36) · CPC title

• G06F11/261

  by simulating additional hardware, e.g. fault simulation · CPC title