Onespin introduces Root Cause Analyzer

An integral part of Onespin's 360MV ABV solution, the Root Cause Analyzer provides advanced debug automation capabilities.

It eliminates most of the time-consuming, error-prone manual analysis of complex information otherwise necessary to trace the root causes of assertion failures.

Onespin's Root Cause Analyzer consists of four tightly integrated debug components.

These constitute a debug flow that automates the tracing of assertion failures back to their root-cause incorrect assertion code, missing constraints or a bug in the RTL source code.

Root Cause Analyzer components include the Waveform Analyzer, which displays diagnostic information to speed analysis of counterexamples that show the assertion failure.

Another component is the Structural Assertion Analyzer: an SVA code debugger that automatically pinpoints the failing parts of an assertion.

It indicates where to start assertion debug and identifies the signals and clock cycles involved in the failure.

Structural Assertion Analyzer also provides source code value annotations for all assertion objects - including objects in referenced named sequences and properties - during all relevant clock cycles of the counterexample.

Thus, it enables the efficient debugging of assertions that are described hierarchically to ease assertion coding, understanding and reuse.

The third component, Temporal Fanin Analyzer, automates the tracing of signals involved in the assertion failure to related design signals, thus automating the exploration of signal dependencies across clock cycles.

The Active Code Analyzer component, meanwhile, marks the RTL source code regions involved in the assertion failure and automates exploration of these code regions across clock cycles, focusing and speeding RTL source code debug.