Abstract: Various approaches for simulating a circuit design are disclosed. In one approach, a first specification of a testbench and a second specification of the circuit design are generated in a hardware description language. The circuit design is synchronous to at least one clock signal. The second specification of the circuit design is automatically translated into a third specification in a general-purpose programming language, and the third specification specifies the behavior of the circuit design at transitions of the at least one clock signal. A fourth specification of an interface between the first specification of the testbench and the third specification of the circuit design is automatically generated. A first behavior of the circuit design is simulated using the first and third specifications linked by the fourth specification and the stimuli from the test bench.

Abstract: A method of building a verification environment within a software-based development tool for a programmable logic device can include determining an interface description for a bus functional model. The method further can include creating a hardware specification for the programmable logic device. The hardware specification can reference the bus functional model and at least one bus-based module interacting with the bus functional model. The verification environment for the programmable logic device can be automatically generated according to the interface description and the hardware specification.