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Course contents

  • Start Here4
  • UVM Foundations14
  • UVM Phases & Simulation Lifecycle26
  • Factory & Configuration15
  • Transaction-Level Modeling (TLM)13
  • UVM Sequences & Stimulus21
  • UVM Agents & Protocol VIP21
  • Environment & Test Classes11
  • Checking & Coverage in UVM21
  • UVM Register Abstraction Layer (RAL)22
  • Advanced UVM in Practice13
    • Callbacks, Command Line, Seeds and Versions
      • Callbacks Done Right
      • The Command Line in Full
      • Random Stability and Seeds
      • UVM 1.2 to IEEE 1800.2: The Delta Table
      • Performance at Scale
    • Synchronisation and Reporting
    • Testbenches at Scale
  • Debug & Regression10
  • Coding Practice47
  • Verification in Industry Practice10
  • Senior Prep: Architecture, Leadership and Interviews32
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‹Advanced UVM in Practice
  1. Topics
  2. UVM Verification
  3. Advanced UVM in Practice
  4. Callbacks, Command Line, Seeds and Versions

Part 10 · Advanced Topics · Intermediate

Callbacks, Command Line, Seeds and Versions

The five operational skills of a production UVM bench: callback hooks, the full command line, random stability, the 1.2-to-1800.2 delta, and performance at scale.

  • 5topics
  • 5lessons
On this page

    A regression farm runs the same compiled bench thousands of times. What changes between runs is a test name, a seed, a handful of plusargs and, now and then, a fault hooked into a driver. This topic is about those levers: how each one really works inside the library, how it fails quietly, and how a senior engineer keeps it under control.

    What you will be able to do

    • Add, order, switch off and debug callbacks, and choose between a callback, a factory override and a virtual hook for a given change.

    • Use every built-in UVM plusarg with its exact syntax, and build a project plusarg registry that turns typos into errors.

    • Explain why adding a component does not change stimulus but adding one random call does, and replay a failing seed exactly.

    • Port code between UVM 1.2 and IEEE 1800.2 from a concrete delta table, including the deltas that change behaviour silently.

    • Find where a bench spends its time, with measured costs for field macros, config_db, reports, objections and callbacks.

    How the five levers meet in one run

    Flowchart: the regression launcher passes seed and plusargs to the simulator, which feeds the command-line processor and the seeding; both reach the test and env, which contain callback hooks and determine time and memory cost. The library version also feeds the test and env.
    Everything a launcher changes reaches the bench through the simulator: arguments through the command-line processor, the seed through UVM's seeding. The library version decides which API exists; callbacks and performance live inside the bench.

    The lessons

    #

    Lesson

    The question it answers

    1

    Callbacks done right

    In which order do two callbacks run, what does an empty callback site cost, and why did a fault never fire?

    2

    The command line in full

    What does each built-in plusarg do exactly, and which typos are silent?

    3

    Random stability and seeds

    Why did a one-line debug edit move every random job, and how do you replay a seed?

    4

    UVM 1.2 to IEEE 1800.2: the delta table

    Which differences break the compile, and which change behaviour without a word?

    5

    Performance at scale

    Where does a UVM bench spend its time and memory, and what do the fixes buy?

    Tip

    Every log in this topic is from a real run (Verilator 5.048, the 1800.2 open-source library). Some come from the course's DMA bench; most come from scratch runs (adv_tb.sv) that add a lesson's extra classes beside the unchanged bench, and the lesson says so where a log needs a library feature the course build leaves out.

    Start with: Callbacks done right.

    PreviousNext: Callbacks Done Right

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    See also

    • Synchronisation and Reporting
    • Testbenches at Scale