Product category:
Design and Development Hardware
News Release from: Synopsys | Subject: Sitka evaluation and development platform
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 26 September 2006
Development platform puts PCI Express IP
on trial
Evaluation and development platform is designed for Synopsys' DesignWare PCI Express IP.
Synopsys and First Silicon Solutions (FS2), a division of MIPS Technologies, have announced the availability of the Sitka evaluation and development platform for Synopsys' DesignWare PCI Express (PCIe) IP The Sitka board, the result of collaboration between the two companies, functions as a standard PCIe addon card with support for up to eight PCIe lanes (each lane is a 2.5Gbit/s communication channel)
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 19 Apr 2001 at 8.00am (UK)
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With this new platform, designers can test and debug their system-on-chip (SoC) designs using the DesignWare PCIe IP while performing interoperability testing between their SoC design and a PCIe PHY.
Designers using the Sitka board to prototype SoCs can reduce their design risk, cut development time and enable predictable success in their complex SoCs.
With the Sitka board, designers can prototype large designs by synthesising their SoC into two large onboard Xilinx Virtex-4 FPGAs.
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These two FPGAs are interconnected through 272 I/O pins and can be configured for operating at up to 1Gbit/s point-to-point interconnect, providing high throughput data transfers or sets of unidirectional channels.
The FPGAs are configured via the onboard ROM.
The ROM can hold multiple FPGA configurations allowing the designer to test design variations and switch between different PHYs and the Xilinx Rocket I/O.
"Partnering with Synopsys, the market leader in PCI Express IP, we are providing designers a high-performance board that can be used to evaluate large, complex PCI Express-based designs", said Rick Leatherman, Vice President and General Manager of FS2.
"Coupling our expertise in hardware verification and debug technology with Synopsys' expertise in PCI Express, we were able to create a solution that allows designers to fully develop, test and debug their SoC designs with PCI Express before committing to silicon".
Synopsys has used the Sitka board for compliance testing of the combined DesignWare PCI Express digital cores and DesignWare PCI Express PHY at the PCI Special Interest Group (PCI-SIG) Compliance Workshops.
For design development and prototyping, the Sitka board provides multiple options for the PHY interface.
For initial prototyping, designers can use the built-in Xilinx Rocket I/O serdes connected directly to the Sitka PCIe interface.
For more extensive PCIe and PHY compatibility testing with their designs, designers can use a PCIe PIPE-compliant PHY and connect through the standard PIPE-C-compliant expansion connector.
For DesignWare PCIe digital IP evaluations, Synopsys provides an FPGA configuration that allows the Sitka board to be used as a PCI Express-based 10/100 Ethernet adapter.
"Our customers have been asking us for a hardware development environment that provides high-performance hardware and the capacity to handle large designs with our proven DesignWare PCI Express IP", said Guri Stark, Vice President of Marketing for the Solutions Group at Synopsys.
"By working closely with FS2, we've created a board that is unmatched in the industry today and enables designers to get to market faster while reducing their risks and lowering costs".
The Sitka development and evaluation board is available now through FS2.
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