This application is related to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/402,034, filed Mar. 28, 2003, entitled AN INTEGRATED CIRCUIT; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/402,628, filed Mar. 28, 2003, entitled SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR USING A DEBUG BUS AS A CAPTURE BUFFER; and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/402,122, filed Mar. 28, 2003, entitled SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR VERIFYING HDL EVENTS, all of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.
The increasing complexity of system designs, increased investment required due to this complexity, and shortened product cycles have presented significant challenges to post-silicon design verification of chipsets. This is especially true with respect to high-end cache coherent non-uniform memory access (“ccNUMA”) chipsets where systems can be extremely large and complex. Processor post-silicon verification is typically focused on electrical verification at least as much as functional verification due to the large amount of full custom design. Chipsets present a different challenge due to the large number of cells of which they are comprised. Additionally, due to the sheer number of buses, internal bus arbitration, cache coherency control, queue arbitration, etc., in a large ccNUMA server, post-silicon functional verification of such a chipset consumes a greater amount of resources with respect to electrical verification than processors typically consume. Internal observability, while relatively simple in pre-silicon verification, poses a major obstacle to debug and functional test coverage.
Determining when system verification is complete is a second major obstacle to completing post-silicon verification in a time-effective manner. While pre-silicon simulation-based testing depends significantly on labor intensive directed and pseudo-random testing, post-silicon testing has historically depended on observing system operations that imply correct behavior.
Performing post-silicon design verification is an industry standard practice that facilitates exposure of bugs not typically uncovered in pre-silicon verification. Typical post-silicon bugs discovered include those that are manifested after long or at-speed operation of the system, those resulting due to incorrect modeling of hardware and firmware interfaces, those resulting from Register-Transfer Language (“RTL”) errors that escaped pre-silicon detection, and those resulting from incorrect mapping of RTL-to-silicon (synthesis/physical bugs). Accepted methods of exercising systems to expose post-silicon bugs include running operating systems and software applications targeted for the final system, creating specific directed software tests that stress different portions of the system, and running software tests that create random system operations.
Real-time observability (“RTO”) refers to the ability to monitor and capture internal signals in real time either on- or off-chip. While internal signal observability features have been available in some field programmable gate array (“FPGA”) architectures and application specific integrated circuits (“ASICs”), they have typically been of limited scope. Limiting factors have been silicon area, wiring constraints, and I/O limitations. In addition, observability features have traditionally been used for debug and not functional test coverage.
A bus interface module (“BIM”) connectable to a debug bus is described. In one embodiment, the BIM comprises a plurality of BIM segments connected in a ring such that an output of each BIM is connected to an input of a next BIM via the debug bus, the BIM comprising logic for receiving data from a previous BIM, logic for receiving data from local logic associated with the BIM, and logic for combining the previous BIM data with local logic data and transmitting the combined data to a next BIM.
In the drawings, like or similar elements are designated with identical reference numerals throughout the several views thereof, and the various elements depicted are not necessarily drawn to scale.
As illustrated in
Each bus segment 102(0)–102(4) comprises several access points 104 at which data from surrounding logic is MUXed onto the debug bus 100. As will be described in greater detail below with reference to
As illustrated in
As previously indicated, the debug port 106 is fed directly from the debug bus 100, which runs at core clock speed and connects the bus segments 106 in a serial ring. The debug bus 100 is segmented so that for any of a plurality of functional areas of an IC in which the bus is implemented, packets to and from the area can be observed in addition to 80 bits of internal state data. Additional details regarding implementation and operation of the debug bus 100 and ports 102, 104 are provided in commonly-assigned, copending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/402,034, filed Mar. 28, 2003, entitled AN INTEGRATED CIRCUIT, which has been incorporated by reference in its entirety hereinabove.
As shown in
As previously indicated, to make MUXing of data manageable, the debug bus 100 is logically divided into eight 10-bit blocks, each of which can be individually manipulated. Further, each access point 104 registers data from the previous access point, rearranges the data from previous access point in 10-bit blocks as specified by the corresponding CSR signal (“*_dbg_link_ctl”), and MUXes in local data to be passed on to the next access point.
For example, the first block (block 402(0)) of the signal 400 could be shifted to the fourth block position of the dbg_chain_out signal by outputting it from the MUX 500(3). Additionally, a selected block of data may be replicated by outputting it from multiple ones of the MUXes 500(0)–500(7). In the foregoing manner, the structure illustrated in
Accordingly, it will be recognized that the disclosed logic structure for moving data involves a plurality of MUXes, where the number of MUXes is equal to the width of the debug bus divided by the width of each of the data blocks. In general, the embodiment described herein defines a standardized logic block that can be used to implement data bus that is then routed to internal and external debug observability equipment. Internal equipment can be a logic analyzer intellectual property macro or equivalently any logic that processes data and can be read/controlled by software. The standardized logic block includes staging registers for timing closure and MUXes that enable data to be combined in order to allow users to extract data in compact blocks that effectively facilitate debug, performance analysis, and post-silicon test coverage. Any data can be moved anywhere else on the bus, with the caveat that data is moved with a granularity such that the MUX implementation is physically small enough to be reasonable. Advantages of the embodiments described herein include that, due to standardization, the design is easier to configure and use and fewer MUX designs mean that the proper operation of the overall embodiment is easier to verify.
An implementation of the invention described herein thus provides a bus interface module for enabling real-time observability in an IC. The embodiments shown and described have been characterized as being illustrative only; it should therefore be readily understood that various changes and modifications could be made therein without departing from the scope of the present invention as set forth in the following claims. For example, while the embodiments are described with reference to an ASIC, it will be appreciated that the embodiments may be implemented in other types of ICs, such as custom chipsets, Field Programmable Gate Arrays (“FPGAs”), programmable logic devices (“PLDs”), generic array logic (“GAL”) modules, and the like. Furthermore, while the embodiments shown are implemented using CSRs, it will be appreciated that control signals may also be applied in a variety of other manners, including, for example, directly or may be applied via scan registers or Model Specific Registers (“MSRs”).
Additionally, although the embodiments described herein anticipate that the data from the previous DBIB will be shifted to allow data from local logic to be placed on the bus, it will be recognized that the local debug data could be moved, e.g., using a structure such as that illustrated in
Accordingly, all such modifications, extensions, variations, amendments, additions, deletions, combinations, and the like are deemed to be within the ambit of the present invention whose scope is defined solely by the claims set forth hereinbelow.
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