Closing coverage in a High-Level Synthesis flow

While the speed up in verification time is a much-appreciated aspect of the HLS flow, teams strive to establish a methodology to easily close coverage at the C++ level and link those metrics to the RTL in the downstream flow. In the past, teams tried to use C++ software coverage tools to obtain coverage metrics. However, these tools do not understand hardware concepts causing misleading analysis and they have no links to the downstream RTL verification flow. That is why Siemens Digital Industries Software created Catapult Code Coverage (CCOV). CCOV brings the code coverage solution that RTL designers employ into the HLS world by using statement, branch, focused expression, and toggle coverage techniques to analyze C++ source code within the context of hardware. By writing the coverage results to the Questa Unified Coverage DataBase (UCDB), designers can use this data within the context of the proven Questa verification management tools. Check out this whitepaper to learn how to close coverage in an HLS flow.