I came across some interesting survey results from the 2007 and 2008 DVCon. Keep in mind, like with any survey, results are skewed based on attendees, which tend to be verification engineers who tend to be using the more advanced methods than the general population. Hence, I’d put more weight on the trends than on the absolute numbers.
1) Which is your primary design language?
2007 2008
Verilog 56% 55%
VHDL 9% 10%
C/C++ 13% 12%
SystemC 9% 8%
SystemVerilog 13% 15%
2 Which primary verification language do you use?
2007 2008
C/C+ 18% 18%
e 7% 5%
OpenVera 4% 4%
Verilog 28% 25%
VHDL 7% 7%
System C 13% 11%
SystemVerilog 23% 30%
3) Which primary verification language do you plan to
use for your next design?
2007 2008
C/C++ 16% 15%
e 5% 4%
OpenVera 1% 2%
Verilog 16% 16%
VHDL 4% 5%
SystemC 15% 11%
SystemVerilog 43% 47%
4) Which primary property specification (assertion-based
verification) language do you use?
2007 2008
Verilog 31% 34%
VHDL 7% 6%
PSL 12% 10%
SVA 49% 50%
Thoughts?
harry the ASIC guy
Tags: DVCon, System Verilog
How could “Verilog” be the answer to question 4? — “Which primary property specification (assertion-based verification) language do you use?”
Brad,
I was wondering that myself. Only thing I could think was that people confused SVA and Verilog. Perhaps the same for VHDL?
Come to think of it, I would have expected some % of people using no assertions at all.
Harry
Interesting data. Thanks for sharing.
Maybe using “Verilog” in #4 means using native Verilog assertions? “This shouldn’t happen, if it does, issue a message or corrupt the data.” Not quite what I’d formally call a property, but it is an assertion.
The % of e and Vera users looks REALLY low. John Cooley’s 2007 DVCon numbers had over 40% using e or Vera. Same conference …. same attendees.
What gives?
Seeing Verilog as a property specification language was a surprise to me too. I’m surprised there isn’t more VHDL for design and I’m really surprised to see the SV is higher for design than VHDL. It’s encouraging to see the SV numbers, but that may be because this is a Verification conference. I’d be interested to know what proportion of the SV is OVM vs. VMM.
Jeremy et al,
If you’d like to weigh in on the verification methodology question, you can vote (anonymously) at the following link.
I’d love to see if we can get more respondents online than DVCon in person. That would be really cool.
harry
Harry,
Not surprising results since at this point DVCon is irrelevant to people using a VHDL only verification methodology. The conference does not have any significant VHDL papers since the program committee rejects them, so how would someone justify attending?
Cheers,
Jim