Understand and use various advanced SystemVerilog features to improve coding flexibility and functionality. Learn how to apply final blocks to define actions taken when simulation ends, and explore the use of unions for efficient data management. Gain skills in fine-grain process control for precise management of processes. Explore the $root instance to organize hierarchical modules and define nested modules for modular code organization. Use $urandom and $urandom_range for generating unsigned random numbers, and randsequence to create random sequences with customizable production weights, enabling efficient and controlled randomization.

Understand and apply the key features introduced in SystemVerilog 2012 to enhance verification capabilities. Explore how interface classes help modularize design verification, and learn to use non-blocking assignments (NBA) for flexible updates to class members. Gain practical knowledge on implementing soft constraints to prioritize certain constraints over others without rigid requirements. Use uniqueness constraints to generate sets of unique values effectively, helping improve the accuracy and efficiency of verification tasks. These new features of SystemVerilog 2012 streamline complex verification processes and support sophisticated design verification methodologies.

Understand the concept of transaction-based verification and how it helps raise the test abstraction level, reducing the need for low-level signal manipulation. Become familiar with the role of SystemVerilog interfaces in acting as transactors, which bridge transactions and signals, enhancing the efficiency of the verification process. Learn to structure transactions effectively and distinguish between using interface methods for simple designs and directly accessing interface signals in complex cases. Additionally, gain insight into creating testbenches that are both portable and reusable, making them adaptable for various architectures and designs.

Understand how metric-driven verification (MDV) improves verification efficiency by focusing on coverage metrics and reducing unnecessary tests. Learn to apply MDV methodology to monitor coverage in a UVC interface and track the accuracy of the module scoreboard. Use MDV to replace time-consuming test writing with strategic constraint sets that ensure verification completeness while minimizing redundant simulations. By tracking coverage metrics, identify gaps in verification and determine which additional tests are necessary, achieving a clear understanding of verification “doneness” and improving overall test quality.

Gain a comprehensive understanding of SystemVerilog’s interprocess synchronization mechanisms, covering non-blocking events, event sequences, mailboxes, and semaphores in depth. Develop the ability to use non-blocking event triggers effectively to control execution flow without interrupting ongoing processes. Learn to utilize event variables and sequences to manage complex process interactions and coordinate timing accurately. Understand how mailboxes support synchronized data exchange, leveraging FIFO structures for orderly communication across processes. Further, explore the use of semaphores in managing access to shared resources, with blocking capabilities and request “weighting” mechanisms that help maintain controlled synchronization across multiple processes.

Gain a solid understanding of the Direct Programming Interface (DPI) in SystemVerilog to facilitate seamless integration of external C functions. Learn to declare and use different data types compatible with both SystemVerilog and C, and explore how to import and export tasks and functions. Understand the difference between pure and context functions and apply this knowledge to choose the appropriate function types for your code. Develop skills to compile and connect C code with SystemVerilog simulations, allowing you to expand verification capabilities and bring additional functionality into your SystemVerilog environment.

Leverage assertions and translate design specifications into assertions. Assertions are written by various people at various times during the development of a product, from conception through design and implementation, and during verification. Assertions can be written at different levels of abstraction, in various hardware design language contexts. Assertions take some effort to write. At the same time, they can make design verification much more efficient, can simplify debugging, and can significantly improve overall productivity.

Learn the basics of SystemVerilog assertions and how to construct assertions to verify design properties. Understand how to write a concurrent assertion by creating a Boolean condition, defining when it is checked, and naming the condition as a property. Practice using assertion operators to build conditional statements and create multicycle assertions using sequences. Explore cycle-based repetition to express complex properties over multiple clock cycles, enabling efficient verification of intricate design behaviors. Master the use of sequence operators to simplify the writing of assertions that track behavior over multiple cycles.

Understand the purpose and applications of formal verification, particularly through property checking. Gain insights into how formal verification differs from dynamic simulation in testing design reliability. Recognize how model checking uses mathematical methods to verify that constraints and properties hold under all specified conditions, without relying on test vectors. Explore the specific advantages of using static verification for proving that properties cannot fail, contrasting with dynamic verification that relies on test stimuli. Familiarize yourself with how to structure constraints and assertions effectively to enhance verification completeness, ensuring that the verification outcomes are as accurate as the property definitions.