The semiconductor industry faces increasing complexity in integrated circuit (IC) designs, demanding area efficiency, low power, and high frequency operation. As the industry shifts towards IP-based methodologies, Verification Engineers must handle highly configurable ASICs while maintaining rapid time-to-market and stringent quality. Robust EDA tools and data-driven methodologies are essential for meeting challenging coverage goals.

This tutorial introduces a novel data-driven methodology to accelerate coverage closure of highly configurable ASICs, covering:

1. Challenges with configurable IPs: Introduces strategies for verifying parameterized designs using randomized testbenches and adaptable coverage metrics.
2. Requirement management & planning: Importance of clear, machine-readable specifications and parameter-driven verification plans with traceability.
3. Early bug detection: Methods for live metric monitoring, issue identification, and leveraging regression data for debugging.
4. Traffic light system & Unreachability: Applying green/amber/red waivers for coverage reachability in complex configurations.
5. Regression structuring: Automated regression systems that randomize parameters, collect coverage/failure data, and generate failure signatures.
6. Accumulated coverage: Techniques for aggregating coverage across all supported randomized configurations.
7. Interactive dashboards: Real-time dashboards for design and verification health, optimizing identification of issues across many IP permutations.
8. Tools to enhance time-to-market: Exploiting graphic, analytic, and AI/ML-powered tools for faster coverage closure.

This methodology empowers teams to efficiently close coverage, offering concrete, reproducible steps for tackling even the most demanding verification scenarios and accelerating time-to-market for complex ASICs.