Cocotb: a Python-based digital logic verification framework

by Benjamin John Rosser (University of Pennsylvania (US))

Wednesday 12 Dec 2018, 10:00 → 11:00 Europe/Zurich

14/5-022 (CERN)

This talk will discuss cocotb, an open source library for digital logic verification. Cocotb (short for "coroutine cosimulation testbench") interfaces with all the major industry simulators, allowing testbenches for Verilog and VHDL designs to be written in the Python programming language. This offers an alternative to both SystemVerilog based frameworks like UVM and custom RTL testbenches.

I will discuss how cocotb's coroutine approach to verification works and walk through a simple example of its usage. I will then describe the Penn engineering group's experience using cocotb for the verification of several ASIC designs for the ATLAS ITk Strips upgrade project (the HCCStar, ABCStar, and AMACv2) since last summer, including what made us choose cocotb over a SystemVerilog/UVM approach to begin with and what we've learned from using it over the course of the past year.

cocotb_talk.pdf