Post-silicon validation of the IBM POWER8 processor

Abstract

The post-silicon validation phase in a processor's design life cycle is geared towards finding all remaining bugs in the system. It is, in fact, our last opportunity to find functional and electrical bugs in the design before shipping it to customers. In this paper, we provide a high-level overview of the methodology and technologies put into use as part of the POWER8 post-silicon functional validation phase. We describe the results and list the primary factors that contributed to this highly successful bring-up.