Jumping in the deep end – a graduate’s perspective on verifying an advanced AI chip

Conference:	Verification Futures 2022 (click here to see full programme)
Speaker:	Mihai Olaru, Logan Fortune, Adam Hizzey
Presentation Title:	Jumping in the deep end – a graduate’s perspective on verifying an advanced AI chip
Abstract:	When it was released to the world in 2020, Graphcore’s Colossus™ Mk2 IPU chip was the most complex processor ever made -containing more than 59.4 billion transistors and 1,472 processorcores on a single 823sqmmdie. Its novel architecture was designed from the ground up to tackle modern AI workloads with class-leading performance.The challenge of verifying such ground-breaking chips is a vast and exciting process for a junior engineer to embark on. Mihai, Adam, and Logan share their experiences verifying IPU silicon as recent graduates, and how Graphcore’s custom python-based verification methodologies have impacted the learning experience.
Speaker Bio:	Mihai joined Graphcore two years ago during the pandemic as a graduate. He mainly worked on the verification of the Tile CPU. He has previous experience with chip verification, using System Verilog and UVM. He changed his career path from automotive firmware projects to chip verification. Logan joined Graphcore in September 2021 as a graduate. He mainly worked in the CPU verification team. He has previously worked in CPU architecture at Thales and in the Inria French Laboratory for the RISC-V community. Adam joined Graphcore’s graduate programme in September 2020, with a physical design background. He transferred into the silicon verification team in July 2021.
Key Points:	Verifying advanced AI processor Novel uses of python in ASIC verification Graduate experiencein Graphcore –technical and social