Post-Silicon validation of the IBM Power8 processor

The post-silicon validation phase in a processor's design life cycle is geared towards nding all remaining bugs in the sys- tem. It is, in fact, our last opportunity to nd 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 de- scribe the results and list the primary factors that con- tributed to this highly successful bring-up. Copyright 2014 ACM.