Essential Guide to Semiconductors, The

Verifying the Design Works

Assuming the chip eventually makes it through place and route in one piece, it would normally be ready to send to the foundry for manufacturing. However, because the cost of tooling up a foundry to make a new chip is so expensive (in the neighborhood of $500,000), it's vitally important that everyone involved in its design convince themselves that there are no remaining bugs. There are few things more expensive—or more damaging to one's career—than a brand new chip that doesn't work, so verifying the design is the last, nail-biting step on the road to silicon.

The enormous costs of chip manufacturing have spawned a subindustry of companies providing tools and tests to verify complex chips without actually building them. ...