Reflections on UVM 1.0

As you may have already seen in the blogosphere and in the tweetdom, the Accellera Board today approved the release of UVM 1.0.  This release is a major accomplishment from a technical standpoint, but it also represents a triumph of the collective will of the Electronics/EDA industry. 

If one flashes back to January 2008, the verification landscape from an interoperability standpoint was bleak.  VMM from Synopsys was widely used, and the Cadence-Mentor collaboration had just release the OVM, which followed on URM/eRM from Cadence and AVM from Mentor.  The “standard” chain of events one would have expected to unwind would have been for VMM and OVM to circle each other like characters in a Sergio Leone film, while the users sat in the audience not knowing on which side to place their bets. 

Indeed, this is more or less what happened during 2008, but then a funny thing happened.  Users, lead by Intel, along with other companies such as Freescale, came together and called a time out.  They demanded that a “universal” verification methodology be developed that would combine the best of both OVM and VMM.  Thus, in parallel with the OVM-VMM jousting that took place during 2008, the Accellera Verification IP Technical Subcommittee (VIP TSC) was formed, and began the work that eventually led to the release of UVM 1.0.

But the formation of the VIP TSC was only a start, and could have led nowhere.  Once again, things did not play to form.  For better or worse, when EDA/Electronics people play word association games, they will likely match the word “standards” with “war”.   Much to my chagrin as a person deeply involved with EDA standards over the past 25 years, there have been a fair number of “standards wars” along the way.  And that is exactly what an observer might have predicted to erupt during the VIP TSC’s work.  Surely one of Cadence, Mentor or Synopsys  would decide that things were not going their way, and subsequently take their marbles and go home—or at least sit on the curb and sulk.

But that did not happen.  Yes, there were some rough patches—as occur in any group activity—but overall the VIP TSC acted as a harmonious group.  The upshot was that by the end of the effort all members of the VIP TSC could look back the UVM 1.0, and be very satisfied with the results.   This is, to my mind, a remarkable result, and one in which I am very proud to have played a small part.

I would also like to publicly thank Dennis Brophy and Yatin Trivedi, my counterparts at Mentor and Synopsys respectively, for their parts in bringing this all to fruition.   As to be expected, there were “interesting” discussions between the three of us during this process, but at the end we remained united in our beliefs (and in our actions) that UVM is right for the industry.