UVM Library Test Suite and Git Repository

[sas73]

Hi,

I just downloaded the UVM library but I couldn't find any tests verifying its functionality. Are such tests available? Also, is the git repository from which the library was released open?

Thanks

[David Black]

If your question on UVM is whether the repository is open to modifications, the answer is no. The UVM proof of concept library is carefully managed by Accellera as part of the standard's development. I cannot answer the question about test suites.

[sas73]

Thanks David. It sounds like no such tests are available. Open source projects in general are not always good at providing their test suites but I find it a bit odd that on open source library for verification doesn't provide the test suites showing how the library itself is verified. It would be easier for people to suggest improvements if they can verify whether or not such a modification breaks something else.

[sas73]

@David Black I did stumble upon an accellera/uvm repository on GitHub. Seems to be what I was looking for although it has been dead since UVM 1.2. Why have it there and not use that platform?

[sas73]

The github repositories are the actively developed code for Accellera’s reference implementation (sourceforge was made read-only when github was spun up).

That being said, github stores the active development for the reference implementation, not for the standard itself.  The class reference (ie. The “Standard”), as well as the Accellera Reference Implementation are officially published on accellera.org:

The UVM 1.2 Standard: http://accellera.org/images/downloads/standards/uvm/UVM_Class_Reference_Manual_1.2.pdf

The UVM 1.2 Reference Implementation:
http://accellera.org/images/downloads/standards/uvm/uvm-1.2.tar.gz

[tymonx]

After that:

I agree with @sas73. We need to open source UVM library using GitHub or even better GitLab with Issue Tracker, proper CI/CD setup and unit testing. Accellera should strongly consider that.

On 1/18/2019 at 10:03 AM, David Black said:

The UVM proof of concept library is carefully managed by Accellera as part of the standard's development. I cannot answer the question about test suites.

After spending some time for internal UVM source code review... Now I have many doubts about quality and architecture design decisions.

[David Black]

@sas73 and @tymonx - Feel free to contact Accellera itself and try to argue your case, but the Accellera is a membership based standards organization and not subject to the whims of the general public. Large electronics and EDA companies depend on their experts who are assigned to work on those standards, and many significant tools and designs are based on their work. If your employer feels strongly about this topic, perhaps they will consider joining the Accellera organization in order to contribute to the discussions. Standards discussions are often long and drawn out with many inputs. Membership at the contributor level is not free because they want serious contributors and because the organization has funding needs to promote the standards.

[sas73]

@David Black That "general public" is the users of UVM and among them are many experts that are not members of Accellera and will never be. Expert users that are willing to spend their own free time on providing feedback are certainly serious about that. I can see that only paying members have the right to change the code but why a fee for looking and commenting on the code that will be open eventually anyway? I'm assuming that it's open for people to read and react to but wouldn't it be better to get that feedback before any mistakes are released? Especially with the long release cycles.

The whole world depends on open source successfully developed in the open and the early feedback from the user community is considered as something valuable. I'm hoping that Accellera would see the same value. Other standards such as the VHDL standard is moving in that direction.