Step-by-step analysis walkthrough

Use when you own AXI/ACE Contracts in a top-level integration review.

1. Open latest integration baseline and manifest.

2. Inspect failing metric by domain.

3. Trace first failing contract boundary.

4. Collect artifacts and assign single-thread owner.

5. Define minimal proof experiment.

6. Apply smallest reversible fix.

7. Run focused check then full regression.

8. Update dashboard and governance log.

9. Decide: close, waive with expiry, or escalate.

10. Publish final review memo.

Artifacts to collect

• protocol compliance trace, bridge attribute map, ordering scoreboard

• baseline manifest

• owner matrix

• regression summary

• risk memo

Decision memo template

SOC DECISION MEMO — AXI/ACE Contracts
baseline:
metric:
root cause:
fix:
residual risk:
owners: fabric RTL owner, VIP owner, coherency architect

Reference visuals

AXI/ACE contract points

AXI/ACE CONTRACT

AW/AR: address + ID + attributes
W/R: data ordering per ID
B/R: completion and error semantics
ACE: coherency sideband + snoop behavior

SoC deep dive

Fabric correctness and contention behavior must be proven together.

Concept diagram

FABRIC FLOW
masters -> routers/VCs -> slaves + memory

Metric graph

LATENCY TAIL
p50 ███
p95 ██████
p99 ██████████

Reports and artifacts

• NoC contention heatmap

• ordering violation report

• QoS fairness summary

• protocol trace

Mini case study

Bandwidth looked fine at average load, but p99 tail violated SLA due to arbitration starvation.

Debug branches

• Isolate traffic class

• Check ordering assumptions

• Audit arbitration policy

Senior review question

Ask: what baseline, owner, and artifact prove this topic is truly closed?

Key takeaways

• State baseline manifest and owner with every closure metric.

• Run cross-domain regression after every top-level fix.

Common pitfalls

• Comparing results across different manifests.

• Unowned issues slipping through review cycles.

• Waiving risks without expiry and validation plan.

Principal SoC review addendum

AXI/ACE integration depends on preserving ID, ordering, coherency attributes, and sideband semantics through bridges and fabric adapters.

Metric: ordering violations, protocol error rate, outstanding depth stability