VLSI DV Interview Puzzles · All levels

Scenario: Coverage Not Closing

Functional coverage plateaus after many regression cycles even though new seeds are added daily. Team suspects remaining bins are either unreachable, mis-modeled, or blocked by testbench sequencing gaps.

Scenario

Functional coverage plateaus after many regression cycles even though new seeds are added daily. Team suspects remaining bins are either unreachable, mis-modeled, or blocked by testbench sequencing gaps.

What to observe

Coverage growth trend flattens below target despite rising simulation count and seed diversity.

Common traps

  • Pursuing random seed volume instead of root-causing unreachable cross bins.

  • Ignoring illegal-bin and ignore-bin misuse that distorts closure perception.

  • Forcing closure with exclusion waivers without scenario-level evidence.

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