{"id":5323,"date":"2011-10-13T12:56:02","date_gmt":"2011-10-13T19:56:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mentor.com\/verificationhorizons\/?p=5323"},"modified":"2026-03-27T08:44:03","modified_gmt":"2026-03-27T12:44:03","slug":"vhs-or-betamax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/verificationhorizons\/2011\/10\/13\/vhs-or-betamax\/","title":{"rendered":"VHS or Betamax?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Legacy\u2019s Luster Lost<\/h3>\n<p>As a follow-on to my last <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.mentor.com\/verificationhorizons\/blog\/2011\/10\/05\/verification-issues-take-center-stage\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">blog<\/a>, where I shared information about Harry Foster speaking live about the research he has been reporting on the last year and where I noted legacy might hold some back, I was going to finish on some of the work we have done at Mentor Graphics to move forward while trying to keep some of those held back by legacy, whole.<\/p>\n<p>Buy why this title?\u00a0 For some, there may be no recollection of what VHS or Betamax are.\u00a0 And if I were to say it is a format used to tape record video, that still might not help given DVD, MP4, etc.\u00a0 If I were to even say there was once a format war over these two, one could easily shrug one\u2019s shoulder and proclaim they both lost.\u00a0 And that is true.<\/p>\n<p>What do we record on today?\u00a0 Precisely, the answer is neither of these for all but an obscure few.\u00a0 But it was towards the end of this format war I left one area to move to another.\u00a0 VHS had all but become the format of that area for video rentals, while the area I moved to was evenly split between the two formats.\u00a0 I had selected Betamax.\u00a0 I can go into great detail to explain the technical advantages of the format.\u00a0 But those words are all lost on the market forces that ushered in VHS.\u00a0 And thanks to continued innovation, these legacy formats have lost their luster.\u00a0 We have all moved on.<\/p>\n<h3>Be Kind \u2013 Rewind<\/h3>\n<p>As SystemVerilog has become the dominant language standard for verification, the methodology work aggregated in Accellera\u2019s Verification IP Technical Subcommittee (VIP-TSC) where it built the Universal Verification Methodology (UVM).\u00a0 While UVM leverages SystemVerilog, the market&#8217;s move from legacy formats has left some who still use those formats to ask if the industry can be \u201ckind, and rewind\u201d \u2013 to still support them.<\/p>\n<p>While Accellera\u2019s UVM has been open to bring the dogma of all market participants together to create a single coherent standard, that has not met with total satisfaction of legacy users.\u00a0 What now appears to be more liked by them is a wholesale translation of UVM in SystemVerilog to legacy languages.\u00a0 What\u2019s the value in that?\u00a0 Does one gain greater productivity from this?<\/p>\n<p>Accellera hopes to bridge this divide with a return to its first phase of verification IP interoperability work to suggest additional ways to interoperate.\u00a0 For up-to-the-minute information on this, I suggest you get involved with the group.\u00a0 Full information about the group is only available in the membership area \u2013 and everyone is invited to be an observing member.\u00a0 But we should expect Accellera to talk about better bridges to those formats important to those sitting around the standardization table.<\/p>\n<h3>Fast Forward<\/h3>\n<p>But I still come back to the question about what\u2019s the value in this. It is time to move forward or be stuck in the past? The format is not the value; the algorithms to do better and faster verification are.\u00a0 To that end, for the users of the <strong><em>e<\/em><\/strong> language, Mentor Graphics has extended its Intelligent Testbench Automation (iTBA) technology to work in an <strong><em>e<\/em><\/strong> environment.<\/p>\n<p>Many UVM (and OVM) users have found they have been able to achieve their coverage goals 10x to 100x faster than before with this innovative technology.\u00a0 And it\u00a0 is now readily available to the 10-15% who still use <strong><em>e<\/em><\/strong>.\u00a0 For more information about leveraging iTBA, you can visit the <a href=\"http:\/\/verificationacademy.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Verification Academy<\/a> where one of the new modules that was added in the iTBA section, titled <a href=\"http:\/\/verificationacademy.com\/course-modules\/dynamic-verification\/intelligent-testbench-automation-itba\/integrating-itba-into-an-e-environment\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Integrating iTBA into an \u2018e\u2019 Environment<\/a>, is ready for viewing and explains how this is done.\u00a0 [Note: Registration is required to view the module and certain restrictions apply.]\u00a0 This module describes integrating Intelligent Testbench Automation into an <em><strong>e<\/strong><\/em> environment, re-using existing eVCs, and achieving functional coverage &gt;10X faster.<\/p>\n<p>While legacy language users may fret about their preferred language, the market has already spoken.\u00a0 Maybe it is time to explore how advanced verification algorithms can be back ported to support legacy to ease the transition.\u00a0 After all, its not the language, it\u2019s the algorithms.\u00a0 Go online and see what the advance algorithms can offer you.\u00a0 Or, join us next week in San Jose, CA at the <a href=\"http:\/\/go.mentor.com\/soc-verification\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Verification Seminar<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Legacy\u2019s Luster Lost As a follow-on to my last blog, where I shared information about Harry Foster speaking live about&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71541,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spanish_translation":"","french_translation":"","german_translation":"","italian_translation":"","polish_translation":"","japanese_translation":"","chinese_translation":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[326,367,451,623,732,751,787,819,834,837],"industry":[],"product":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-5323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-accellera","tag-betamax","tag-e","tag-ovm","tag-standards","tag-systemverilog","tag-uvm","tag-verification","tag-vhs","tag-vip-tsc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/verificationhorizons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/verificationhorizons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/verificationhorizons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/verificationhorizons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71541"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/verificationhorizons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5323"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/verificationhorizons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14633,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/verificationhorizons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5323\/revisions\/14633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/verificationhorizons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/verificationhorizons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/verificationhorizons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5323"},{"taxonomy":"industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/verificationhorizons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/industry?post=5323"},{"taxonomy":"product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/verificationhorizons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product?post=5323"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/verificationhorizons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}