Portable Stimulus Specification Released for Public Review

I am happy to announce that Accellera has just released an Early Adopter version of the new Portable Stimulus Specification for Public Review. This document represents a years-long effort on the part of the Portable Stimulus Working Group (PSWG) to create an industry standard that builds on the Intelligent Testbench Automation language and technology pioneered by Questa inFact, with signification contributions from Cadence and Breker, as well as the other members of the PSWG.

The Early Adopter specification provides a comprehensive explanation of the new Portable Stimulus Domain Specific language. This declarative language is designed for abstract behavioral description using actions; their inputs, outputs and resource dependencies; and their composition into use cases including data and control flows. These use cases capture test intent that can be analyzed to produce a wide range of possible legal scenarios for multiple execution platforms (e.g., virtual platforms, simulation, emulation, prototypes, silicon, etc.). There is also a semantically-equivalent C++ Class Library to specify the same declarative abstract behavior descriptions in an environment that may be more comfortable to some users. The Early Adopter specification also includes a preliminary mechanism to capture the programmer’s view of a peripheral device, independent of the underlying platform, further enhancing portability.

The PSWG is actively seeking your feedback on the Spec and has set up a Portable Stimulus Discussion Forum where you can post your questions, comments and/or suggestions on this exciting new standard. The Public Review Period will end on Friday, September 15, 2017, so this would be the perfect “summer reading” during your vacation.

To help you get started, I’ll be presenting “Portable Stimulus is Here! (Almost)” at the Verification Academy booth (#429) at DAC at 10am on Monday. The PSWG will be presenting a joint tutorial on Monday afternoon at 1:30 in room 18CD. For those of you not attending DAC, we also have a Portable Stimulus Basics course , as well as a webinar on “Automating Reusable Retargetable Scenario-level Tests with Portable Stimulus” on verificationacademy.com

Accellera will be sponsoring a breakfast and Portable Stimulus Town Hall meeting on Tuesday morning from 7:30-9:00am in Room 10AB. The breakfast is free, but you’ll need to register in advance. I’ll be moderating a discussion between the audience and several members of the PSWG.

I’ll also be participating in a Panel Discussion about Portable Stimulus on Tuesday at 10:30am in Ballroom E.

I hope to see you at one of these events, or just stop by the Verification Academy Booth and say “hi.”