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This chapter has introduced the practical aspect of developing test benches and validating VHDL models using simulation. This is an often overlooked skill in VHDL (or any hardware description language) and is vital to ensuring correct behavior of the final implemented design. We have also introduced the concept of design synthesis and highlighted the problem of not only ensuring that a design simulates correctly, but also how we can make sure that the design will synthesize to the target technology and still operate correctly with practical delays and parasitics. Finally, we have raised some of the practical implementation issues and potential problems that can occur with real designs, and these will be discussed in more detail in Part 4 of this book.
An important concept useful to define here is the difference between validation and verification. The terms are often confused, leading to problems in the final design and meeting a specification. Validation is the task of ensuring that the design is doing the right thing. If the specification asks for a low pass filter, then we must implement a low pass filter to have a valid design. We can even be more specific and state that the design must perform within a constraint. Verification, on the other hand, is much more specific and can be stated as doing the right thing right. In other words, verification is ensuring that not only does our design do what is required functionally, but in addition it must meet ALL the criteria defined by the specification, preferably with some headroom to ensure that the design will operate to the specification under all possible operating conditions.
Finally, we have introduced several design tools and it should be stressed that this in no way indicates a preference, and of course there are a large number of design tools available including some open source tools (many more than I have listed in this chapter). As is usual with the world of design automation, it is really a matter of user preference as to which tools are used.
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