Version 3.8 of SVUnit, just released, improves support and usability for people unit testing UVM components.

Download the Latest Version of SVUnit from GitHubBut before we talk about new features, I want to mention that the cool part of this release… for me anyway… is that I didn’t have to do anything! Colleen Piercey and Dave Read, colleagues of mine from XtremeEDA, are responsible for adding and testing the version 3.8 features. That makes Colleen and Dave the newest active contributors to SVUnit!

As far as new 3.8 features, people can now use create_unit_test.pl to generate a UVM specific test case template. The template gives test writers placeholders for connectivity in an auto-generated UUT wrapper. It also inserts file includes, package imports and required function calls in the setup and teardown to avoid people having to do it themselves. Importantly, the new UVM test case template compiles and runs with UVM as-generated so you start writing tests from a known good state. Continue reading →

The inaugural SVUnit User Group Lunch will take place the week of DVCon in San Jose. Bringing SVUnit users together is something I’ve wanted to do for a while. So much so that I’ve held off using the word ‘inaugural’ for my entire life, saving it for exactly this moment!

Details are still being worked out, but so far it’s looking like lunch time, Wednesday March 2, somewhere near the Doubletree Hotel in San Jose. It’ll be an informal gathering where developers that are either using, evaluating or thinking of using SVUnit can get together, get to know each other and share experience and opinions. We’ll have room for about a dozen people (happy to say I’ve got 3 confirmed already).

This is an important community building exercise that I’m pretty excited about. With the SVUnit user base growing, now seems like the right time to start learning from each other. If you’re an SVUnit user and/or you want to meet other SVUnit users over lunch, please let me know at: neil.johnson@agilesoc.com. I’ll follow-up with details as they get sorted out.

-neil

I figured the new user guide made SVUnit look like a real product. And since real products have a logo, I stayed up late one night and did logo. But if it has a logo, shouldn’t it also have a tagline? I guess, so now it has a tagline. But having a tagline means… well… you get the idea.

(For anyone curious about what goes on in my head, we’ve reached the point of real-time brain dump. It happens to me once in a while. Not sure how long it’ll last. Hopefully it’s entertaining.)

-neil

While I find reading EDA user guides hard enough, writing them is way worse, which is why I’ve avoided it for as long as I have. Alas, with usage of SVUnit growing pretty steady and people hinting for better instruction, I figured it was finally time to get something out there.

So whether you’re new to SVUnit or you’re a seasoned SVUnit old-timer, the SVUnit User Guide will probably have some useful tidbits of information to improve your experience. It’s in a state of incomplete so far, but useful nonetheless. It’ll slowly come together toward a state of completeness over the next few weeks.

As always, feedback is welcome at neil.johnson@agilesoc.com.

Enjoy!

-neil

Slacking off? Me?? I guess maybe I have been because someone finally got sick of waiting for me to get to a new SVUnit feature and added it themselves…

…and that made me happy.

As of 2 about weeks ago, Tudor Timisescu is the latest addition to the list of active SVUnit developers-at-large. That brings us to a grand total of 1… which is 1 more than the 0 we had before! Continue reading →

Download the Latest Version of SVUnit from GitHubI just posted version 3.1 of SVUnit to GitHub. If you’ve been waiting patiently for me to get rid of the makefiles, the wait is over. From here on, we’ve got a simple command line script to run SVUnit unit tests with any of IUS, Questa, Modelsim, Riviera PRO and VCS.

The best place to start with version 3.1 is the README.txt in the release package. Pay attention to step 5 because that’s where everything changes (for the simpler and better). All the code in the release package, including the examples, has been updated to match the new scripts so there shouldn’t be anything misleading in there. Also exciting is that all the documentation has been removed (it was incredibly out-of-date and misleading to say the least). I still need to update the SVUnit on demand videos which I’ll do as soon as I can.

Lastly, here’s the usage for the new run script that I’ve been touching up over the past several weeks…

If you spot anything that needs attention, I’d appreciate it if you could file a ticket. Touch-ups should be easy to turn around quickly. FYI… the next updates I’m considering are support for UVM1.2 and parameterized unit test classes as well as a few other things people have been asking for.

Thanks to those that gave feedback and helped get us to version 3.1!

-neil

 

 

I’ve had people asking about the SVUnit new scripting proposal I posted a few months back. I forgot about it for a while but now I’m back. I’ve taken some of the feedback I’ve received and folded it into a new version. Slightly different in that I’ve added switches for compile and runtime options.

Here’s the help. Take a look and let me know what you think…

 

 

This is ready to go. I have a couple people trying it out. If you’d be willing to test-drive the new scripts before an official release, I’d sure appreciate it. Just let me know at neil.johnson@agilesoc.com and I’ll ship you a copy. If all goes well, I’d expect to release this within a month or so as version 3.0.

Thanks in advance for you comments!

-neil