Digital Integrated Circuit Design Using Verilog and Systemverilog

Chapter 8

Simulation, timing, and race conditions

Abstract

ASIC design methodology using a hardware design language is dependent on digital simulation. This simulation is an imperfect representation of how a real circuit will perform, but it is the most practical technique for initial design verification. Over the years numerous simulation algorithms have been developed. The thrust has always been to increase speed. The first digital simulators were time driven, where each node was evaluated at each instant of time. Since at any given time, only a small percentage of nodes will have changed from the previous instant, most of the computing effort was wasted. More modern algorithms are vastly more computationally efficient and modern simulators ...