PSS 3.0 Public Review Draft Now Available

[Lynn Garibaldi]

PSS 3.0 adds new features, corrects errors, clarifies aspects of the language and semantic definitions, removes some features, and reorganizes some sections relative to version 2.1 of the Portable Test and Stimulus Standard (October 2023). The most substantial feature added in 3.0 is support for Behavioral Coverage (Clause 19), which allows the user to identify a set of actions and data combinations that need to be observed to exercise key functionality. Other new features include:

• String methods, including size() and find(), and the sub-string operator to extract a sub-string from a given string (7.6)
• Support for collections of reference types (7.10)
• Platform qualifiers on function prototype declarations (22.2)
• Support for comments in target-template blocks (22.5)
• Support for yielding control with cooperative multitasking (22.7.14)
• Added an address space group to allow multiple address spaces to share common storage elements (24.9)
• Defined mapping between PSS lists and SystemVerilog Queues (D.5.5)
• Added Annex F to specify the formal semantics of behavioral coverage

The PSS public review will be open through July 5, 2024. The public review draft can be downloaded here. Please post questions or comments in this forum.