Verification has its own vocabulary, and some words appear before the lesson that teaches them. When that happens, the meaning below is enough to keep reading.
Word | One-line meaning | Taught in |
|---|---|---|
DUT | The design under test: the RTL being checked. | |
Testbench | Code that drives the DUT, checks its outputs and reports a verdict. It is not built into hardware. | |
Stimulus | The input values and sequences the testbench applies. | |
Reference model | Code that computes the right answer from the spec, to compare against the DUT. | |
Transaction | One operation described as data, such as one packet or one bus write, instead of as pin wiggles. | |
Driver | The part that turns transactions into pin activity on the DUT inputs. | |
Monitor | The part that watches pins and rebuilds transactions from what happened. It never drives. | |
Scoreboard | The part that compares what the monitor saw with what the reference model expected. |
Word | One-line meaning | Taught in |
|---|---|---|
Interface | A named bundle of signals that connects a testbench to a DUT in one port. | |
Class, object, handle | A class is a type; new builds an object from it at run time; a handle is a variable that points at an object. | |
Virtual interface | A handle to an interface, so class code can reach DUT pins. | |
rand, constraint, randomize() | Fields the solver fills with random values that obey rules you write. | |
Seed | The starting number of the random generator. The same seed repeats the same run. | |
Assertion | A rule about signal behaviour over clock cycles that the simulator checks all the time. | |
Coverage | A record of which planned scenarios actually happened during the runs. | |
Regression | Many tests and seeds run together, with one pass or fail summary. | |
UVM | A standard library of testbench classes built from these same ideas. It has its own course. |
A driver puts values on the DUT inputs. A monitor only watches pins and reports what happened. If a monitor drove anything, the testbench would be checking its own stimulus instead of the DUT.
To know what the right answer is. The scoreboard compares two streams: what the DUT did (from the monitor) and what it should have done (from the reference model).
Every Taught in link was checked against the course page list on 2026-10-18.