Blog
“The best skill set for a good engineer is the ability to solve problems that never existed before”
The continual growth of complexity in semiconductor ‘chip’ design has revolutionised modern computing, leading to highly specialised hardware. Ever-increasing demand has led to the rapid increase of chip complexity and performance. As a result, modern application specific chips often take years to develop, cost millions of pounds and rely on the global supply chain. Chip design flow covers the procedure of taking initial requirements through to design, testing and then manufacturing.
In this world of semiconductors, verification is sometimes thought of as ‘dull’ and that design is the “real engineering”. At the UKESF, we think that this is an unfair characterisation based on lack of understanding.
We agree with verification engineers who often argue theirs is the more creative part of the process. They would say that it is easy to make something work right some of the time, but it takes a lot of thought and ingenuity to think of all the possible ways it might conceivably go wrong, and then design code to test those ways. Design Verification engineers often combine strong technical insight (they need to understand everything to deep levels) with creativity and a mischievous streak.
“The job is probably more complex, but also more interesting”
Philippe Luc, Codasip
We wanted to provide an opportunity for our UKESF Scholars to learn more about Design Verification, and so we invited Philippe Luc, Director of Verification at Codasip, to share a presentation with us. In a hugely engaging webinar, Philippe discussed his Electronics projects, both at home and in work and developments in digital technology; along with an insight about the day-to-day life of a verification engineer, and the skills required to succeed.
“The best skill set for a good verification engineer is the ability to solve problems that never existed before”
Philippe Luc, Codasip
This webinar is part of a suite of supporting activities for our UKESF Scholars, designed to help them to develop their employability skills and work-readiness.
Codasip, a UKESF supporting company, is a founding member of RISC-V International and the first provider of a commercial RISC-V processor IP.
