Article: Debug – Last Bastion Of Automation

Folklore erroneously claims verification consumes 70% of development time. But does debug really consume 50%?
by Brian Bailey

There have been a number of times when anecdotal evidence became folk law and then over time, the effort was put in to find out whether there was any truth in it. Perhaps the most famous case is the statement that verification consumes 70% of development time and resources. For years this “fact” was used in almost every verification presentation and yet nobody knew where the number had come from.

All development teams are different, and even though this was a mean figure nobody attempted to come up with a definitive answer. In 2007, Mentor Graphics began a series of studies, first using the help of Far West Research and from 2010 onwards using the Wilson Research Group, and the truth became known. In 2007 it was not true. Verification consumed only 46% of development time according to the survey results. It is not true today. While it has been increasing and today stands at around 57% that has not stopped most papers and presentations from using the fictitious number of 70%. However, it may be true that the most advanced designs are somewhere around this figure because 70% is correct for about 20% of the industry.