Specman: If at first you don’t succeed – Test, test and test again

Specman ask any developer about the importance of product testing, and you’ll universally get the same answer
That releasing a product onto the market without proper testing is a guaranteed recipe for disaster.
Somewhat ironically, most would also agree that the extent of that disaster often mirrors the extent of the original, missed problem.

History with examples of product recalls from cars to airplanes, computers to cellphones. One need only think back to Samsung’s disastrous problems with the Galaxy Note 7 to see how disruptive and damaging faulty products can be.

In the case of the Note 7, the potential for the device’s battery to explode forced the company to recall the handsets at an estimated cost of $900 million. This was just the fixed, directly-accountable cost. In real terms, the company estimated overall losses to run closer to $3bn when taking account of damage to their brand as a whole.

Specman – Of course, this was Samsung, one of the richest manufacturers in the world.
While $3bn is undoubtedly a colossal figure, the company is big enough to absorb losses on that scale and bounce back.

When it comes to smaller businesses, it can be a very different story.
A faulty product recall can be enough to end a company – to destroy faith in its products and damage its reputation beyond repair.
Worse yet, a recall is frequently only the thin tip of the wedge.
The accompanying legal challenges, costly court cases and compensation claims are often enough to completely obliterate a company’s chances of ever recovering.

The importance of regular product testing

The truth is, though, almost all design faults result from mismanaged or incomplete testing Specman.
End-product failures are usually caused by errors that could (and should) have been identified through comprehensive testing – well before the first product rolled off the production line.
By the time a device reaches consumers, really, the only option left is to recall in most cases. Issues need to up well before reaching that point.

In product development, there are almost always critical nodal points and junctions where systems or components can, in essence, off. Final, full testing of all components working together in a live environment is also essential however the key to staying on top of any build is to test components as they’re being developed on an ad hoc basis to (hopefully) isolate errors before moving any further forward.

Progressive, stage-by-stage testing helps keep a project team focused and allows developers to stay on top of the job with critical milestones.
It also helps teams avoid spending too long traveling down the wrong path. It’s far less difficult to change tack through a job if an error is flagged early.

Specman and stage-by-stage testing

This is where Specman comes in. Specman provides test-benching phases through product development.
The software allows developers to isolate and test critical processes within an overall build without compiling the entire project.

Specman provides rapid environment construction, scalability and reuse.
It automates test generation with as much as five times faster runtime.
It can be easily integrated into existing verification processes as it is cloud-ready and supports industry-standard verification languages.

Specman is also compatible with the Open Verification Methodology (OVM), Universal Verification Methodology (UVM) and the eReuse Methodology (eRM), making it a highly versatile tool for project debugging. It also eliminates misrepresentations a common cause of bug escapes.