Questa Base Workshop, Oslo - Unlocking the Tools You Already Own

 

Last month, InnoFour co-hosted a hands-on Questa Base workshop in Oslo together with Inventas and Siemens EDA. 25 FPGA developers spent an afternoon discovering advanced simulation, debugging, and verification capabilities that most of them had never used before - despite holding licences for them. The event was a success, and we are already planning the next one. 

 

Together with Inventas and Siemens EDA, we hosted a free, hands-on technical workshop at the Inventas office in Oslo. 25 FPGA developers gathered for an afternoon built around one goal: give engineers tools and techniques they could apply the very next morning.

 

The venue was excellent - a modern, well-equipped space that encouraged both focused work during sessions and open conversation in the breaks.

 

Before the hands-on lab began, we ran a quick show-of-hands survey. The result was striking - only a small minority of attendees had used - or were even aware of - the QIS flow, the Visualizer and its debug capabilities, or coverage features already available in their Questa Base environment. Tools they already hold licenses for. It was a vivid illustration of exactly the gap we set out to close.

 

The Sessions

The centrepiece of the afternoon was a hands-on lab led by Faïçal Chtourou, DVT Field Application Engineer at Siemens EDA, covering QIS simulation flows, advanced debugging with Visualizer, performance profiling, and coverage closure - all with tools and environments provided on site.

 

Alongside the lab, two additional sessions rounded out the programme. Marius Elvegård, Senior FPGA Developer at Inventas, presented a practical introduction to building UVVM-based testbenches and automating regression workflows with HDL Regression. Yngve Hafting, Lecturer at Oslo University, gave a guest lecture on Cocotb - focusing on timing, the event queue, and principles for reliable stimulus generation and checking.

 

After the Sessions

For those who wanted to keep practicing, 30-day evaluation licenses were made available - giving even existing Questa users a frictionless way to explore the techniques covered during the day on their own code and projects.

 

The formal programe closed with an afterwork that ran well into the evening. Engineers from different industries stayed on to compare approaches, exchange experiences, and continue conversations that had started in the Q&A. The kind of peer exchange that's hard to plan for, but easy to recognize when it happens.

 

Coming After the Summer

We are already working on the next edition - and we intend to bring this format to additional regions as well. Same concept: free, practical, and focused on helping engineers get more out of tools they already own.

 

For more information feel free to contact us.