CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
7 January 2009
Product News
Synopsys DesignWare Controller and PHY IP for PCI Express Successfully Pass PCI-SIG 2.0 Compliance Testing
Synopsys, Inc. announced that its DesignWare® digital controller and PHY IP for the PCI Express® 2.0 technology is the first complete, single-vendor PCI Express 2.0 IP solution to successfully pass the PCI Express 2.0 compliance testing at the PCI-Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG®) workshop held in Taiwan in October 2008. Passing PCI Express 2.0 compliance testing helps ensure interoperability while reducing risk and time-to-market for designers incorporating the complex, high-performance interface. As the only IP vendor to offer a complete, silicon-proven and compliant PCI Express 2.0 solution consisting of digital controllers, PHYs and Verification IP, Synopsys continues to demonstrate industry leadership.
The PCI Express 2.0 specification doubles the 1.1 specification transfer speed from 2.5 Gbps to 5.0 Gbps per lane, helping to meet the demand for increased bandwidth in data center, servers, networking and storage applications. Backward compatibility with PCI Express 1.1 allows designers to increase performance, while maintaining interoperability with existing devices.
The DesignWare digital controllers for PCI Express 2.0 fully support the PIPE interface standard and the PCI-SIG I/O Virtualization (IOV) suite of specifications. Synopsys offers digital controllers for Endpoint, Root Complex, Switch and Bridge applications. In addition, designers implementing the ARM AMBA® 3 AXI™ and AMBA AHB™ on-chip interconnect can add PCI Express 2.0 functionality to their SoC designs by using either the DesignWare Bridge IP for PCI Express to AMBA 3 AXI or AMBA AHB.
"The enhanced performance available with the PCI Express 2.0 interconnect standard helps address the increased bandwidth requirements in next-generation enterprise computing infrastructure applications," said Al Yanes, PCI-SIG chairman and president. "We are happy to see that Synopsys, an active member of PCI-SIG, continues to support the PCI Express standard in the market by providing IP solutions that enable designer to integrate the PCI Express interface into their products."
The DesignWare PHY IP substantially exceeds key PCI Express 2.0 specifications in the areas of jitter, margin and receive sensitivity thus delivering a robust design that tolerates process, voltage and temperature variations. Embedded high-speed mixed signal IP, such as a PCI Express 2.0 PHY, can pose significant testing challenges in terms of development time, coverage and equipment cost. With the DesignWare PHY for PCI Express, at-speed production testing can be conducted on a pure digital tester by using the supplied ATE test vectors for full compliance eye-mask testing. This eliminates the need for expensive test equipment, enabling designers to speed development time and lower costs. Furthermore, the advanced built-in diagnostics capabilities provide customers with an on-chip sampling scope for quick debug of the SoC.
The DesignWare Verification IP for PCI Express 2.0 supports directed testing and the constrained random methodologies defined in the Verification Methodology Manual (VMM) for SystemVerilog. To help designers test the integration of the DesignWare digital controller IP in their SoC designs, the DesignWare Verification IP is included with the DesignWare digital controller for PCI Express 2.0.
"As a leader in PCI Express IP, Synopsys has hundreds of design wins with our DesignWare PCI Express solutions, and our customers are shipping PCI Express 2.0-based designs in high volume production today," said John Koeter, vice president of marketing, Synopsys Solutions Group. "Achieving compliance for our complete IP solution enables designers to lower interoperability risks and speed time to market for their PCI Express products."
Availability
The DesignWare PHY IP for PCI Express 2.0 is available in x4 and x8 lane widths in leading 65-nm foundry processes. The DesignWare digital controller IP for designing Endpoint, Root complex, Dual Mode, Switch and Bridge PCI Express 2.0 devices are available now. The DesignWare Verification IP for PCI Express 2.0 is available now, bundled with the digital controller, as a standalone product, and included in the DesignWare Library and VCS® Verification Library.
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