From "What-If" to "What-Is": Cadence IP Validation for Silicon Platform Success

By Joe C

August 13, 2025

Data rates are escalating with seemingly no end in sight due to the insatiable demand for more bandwidth to accommodate AI factories and other data-intensive AI/ML, HPC, cloud, and data center applications. As just one example, the new PCI Express (PCIe) 7.0 specification doubles the bandwidth over its predecessor—boasting a raw bit rate of 128.0 GT/s for a maximum bandwidth of 512 GB/s bidirectionally in a 16-lane configuration. Ensuring that PCIe, Universal Chiplet Interconnect Express (UCIe), advanced memory subsystems, and other blazing high-speed protocols are electrically sound and will function as intended in the system for which they are designed is no small feat.

Bringing up a new system on chip (SoC) often means diving into firmware bring-up, configuring registers, and validating multi-lane links—tasks that can easily stretch your debug calendar for weeks.

But what if you could streamline that process?

Imagine shortening the bring-up cycle from weeks to days, working with IP that’s already verified in silicon, and eliminating uncertainty from day one—even in complex multi-lane scenarios.

At Cadence, we transform “what-if” into “what-is” with our extensive IP validation expertise, gained through more than 5 years providing full-subsystem testchips for the industry’s leading protocols. Integrating both a PHY and a controller on a single die, Cadence IP subsystems support PCIe, Ethernet, memory, and UCIe protocols (see Figure 1). These integrated, scalable solutions let you validate under true system conditions, uncover corner-case failures early, and shrink your debug schedule from weeks to days.

Figure 1: Cadence Interface IP Key HPC/AI Portfolio

Taking validation to the next level, Cadence’s complete PHY and controller subsystem architecture delivers three clear advantages. Our customers can be assured of:

• A real-system multi-lane validation environment rather than an FPGA emulation workaround
• Simpler, more stable hardware setups without auxiliary FPGA boards
• The elimination of FPGA timing-closure headaches and costly FPGA platforms to accommodate controller RTL

These subsystem strengths form the backbone of our flow. With real-world traffic streaming through these multi-lane slices of silicon, corner-case issues surface early, and debug schedules shrink dramatically.

Figure 2: Cadence IP for PCIe 6.0 Full Subsystem Demo

To further ensure you catch every issue before it slows you down, the Cadence validation engine never sleeps. With state-of-the-art test equipment and infrastructure across our labs in India, North America, and Ireland, we are fully equipped to host customer silicon for development, bring-up, and debugging activities around the clock. This global infrastructure has fueled industry-first achievements—including DDR5 12.8Gbps MRDIMM, LPDDR6, and 32Gbps UCIe-S silicon validation—while also supporting key milestones such as PCIe 5.0 x8 and 100G Ethernet IEEE802.ck compliance. In addition, it powers comprehensive test suites:

• Protocol-compliance / interoperability regression
• Electrical characterization (such as functionality testing, receiver jitter tolerance, and transmitter testing)
• Exhaustive reliability and stress testing (such as electrostatic discharge, latch-up, and high-temperature operating life)

Our experts rotate through time zones, share unified dashboards for real-time insights, and pivot instantly to address customer-specific scenarios. This ensures any issues surface early and get resolved without delay.

Figure 3: Cadence Professional Lab Environments and Validation Capabilities

By leveraging unified multi-lane subsystem testchips and 24/7 global lab support, Cadence delivers a streamlined validation platform that slashes bring-up cycles, eliminates first-pass uncertainty, and accelerates time-to-market—empowering teams to ship interfaces that work flawlessly from day one.

Ready to leave first-silicon uncertainty behind? Head to cadence.com to unleash your imagination and build next-gen products with speed, precision, and confidence.