Article: Code Coverage within the HDL Editor – now that’s a nice feature

Sunil Sahoo
Aldec

For a long time I have been a fan of code coverage tools that are embedded into the simulators themselves, and which give you the ability to switch easily between the code and the coverage results. It is particularly helpful to have a way of navigating the hierarchy, selecting a coverage result and then being able to look into the source code and make changes.

I recently had occasion to explain to someone how the feature works in Aldec’s Riviera-PRO, and to reflect on the tool developments that led to this great capability. As you may be aware, Aldec has a number of legacy coverage tools that allow you to view the coverage results from within the simulator; and which give you easy access to the coverage results and the corresponding lines of code. With the introduction of our unified coverage database – in .acdb format – it became possible to see the code coverage results in a more flexible format. The biggest boost, in my opinion, was the introduction of a cross-probing capability.